This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Officials with 2024 Olympic Games in Paris are offering an apology of sorts in connection with their intentional pagan reimagining of Jesus' Last Supper featuring an obese woman and drag queens, but many Christians are not accepting their sentiment.
"Clearly there was never intention to show disrespect to any religious group. On the contrary, we intended to show tolerance and community. If people have taken any offense we are, of course, really, really sorry," Paris 2024 spokesperson Anne Descamps told reporters.
But some online reaction to the statement is far from "apology accepted:"
"Sorry, @Olympics apology not accepted. There was no tolerance for Christians. In fact their God & their faith was attacked. You clearly announced in the beginning it was aimed at the last supper. Not a 'mistake' a miscalculation! Unacceptable! Demons and devil worship."
Robert Barron, the Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota, posted a video saying, "It's anything but an apology. In fact it's kind of a masterpiece of woke duplicity."
"So we have a group of drag queens cavorting in a sort of sexually provocative way, clearly an imitation of DaVinci's Last Supper …
"I love this: 'We tried to celebrate community tolerance.' Yeah, tolerance, except for those pesky 2.6 billion Christians on the planet. Everyone's welcome, everyone's tolerated, all this lovely diversity until you get to anyone who disagrees with your ideology. …
"I wonder what planet they're living on if they think that harmony and peace and all this was achieved by this clear affront to Christians," the bishop continued.
"Christians were offended because it was offensive, and it was intended to be offensive, so please don't patronize us with this condescending remark about, 'Well, if you had any bad feelings we're awfully sorry about that.' Again, if people think this so somehow gonna mollify people all over the Christian world who are outraged by what happened, I would recommend thinking again.
"A real apology would be something like, this was a mistake, it should never have been done and we're sorry for it.' I don't think Christians should be mollified. I think we should keep raising our voices."
The Olympic imagery included an obese woman with a halo-like crown representing Jesus Christ in his final meal with His apostles, who were portrayed by drag queens and gay icons.
"The idea was to do a big pagan party linked to the gods of Olympus," Thomas Jolly, the opening ceremonies choreographer told the Paris-based BFM network on Sunday, according to France 24. "You'll never find in my work any desire to mock or denigrate anyone."
Mississippi-based telecommunications and technology company C Spire posted on X that it had pulled all of its advertising from the Olympics over the ceremony's mockery of painting created to show a biblical moment crucial to the Christian faith.
"We were shocked by the mockery of the Last Supper during the opening ceremonies of the Paris Olympics," the company posted. "C Spire will be pulling our advertising from the Olympics." The four-hour spectacle was held along the Seine River, featuring global stars like Celine Dion and Lady Gaga, both of whom are considered icons for the queer community.
