Pope Francis silent on Olympic opening scandal

[Stone]

Pope Francis silent on Olympic opening scandal while scandal-plagued Vatican archbishop defends it
Pope Francis did not say anything about the Olympics’ blasphemous opening ceremony in his Sunday Angelus, and Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the Francis-appointed president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, claimed it ‘reveals a profound question.’



Pope Francis
Flickr, Yahoo Commons

Jul 29, 2024
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews [adapted]) — The often scandalous Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia has issued a contradictory defense of the Olympic opening ceremony featuring a drag queen mockery of the Last Supper, while Pope Francis has remained notably silent about the incident.

In a social media post on July 27, Archbishop Paglia attempted to straddle both sides of the debate surrounding the Olympics’ infamous opening ceremony, which saw drag queens and dancers perform a mockery of the Last Supper, particularly appearing to faux-imitate Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper” painting.

The show was designed by a homosexual and received instant and near unprecedented condemnation from scores of bishops across the world, along with numerous secular leaders such as Elon Musk and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson.

However, Paglia’s response was much more conciliatory than those of some other bishops. “The mockery of the Last Supper at the #OlympicsParis2024, rightly deplored by @Eglisecatho, [French Catholic bishops’ conference] reveals a profound question,” he wrote.

That “profound question” Paglia described as being that “everyone, but really everyone, wants to sit at that table where Jesus gives life for all and teaches love.”

What has been notable by its absence is the complete lack of any comment from Pope Francis or an official position of the Holy See that would have been issued by the press office.

With the Olympics ceremony taking place on Friday night, many Catholics and Vaticanistas were waiting to see if Francis would comment on the scandal during his weekly Sunday Angelus. The Pope customarily makes reference to topical issues around the globe at the end of his Sunday address, often expressing his solidarity with particular groups of people and calling for prayers from Catholics.

Francis made no mention of the Olympic opening ceremony during his Angelus, while nevertheless making a number of special mentions for causes and celebrations around the world.

In fact, Francis did make mention of the Olympics generally but in reference to hunger and arms production. His comments were:

And while there are many people in the world who suffer due to disasters and hunger, we continue to produce and sell weapons and burn resources fueling wars, large and small. This is an outrage that the international community should not tolerate, and it contradicts the spirit of brotherhood of the Olympic Games that have just begun. Let us not forget, brothers and sisters: war is defeat!

Paglia, appointed by Pope Francis as the president of the now scandal-plagued Pontifical Academy for Life, is a notable Vatican official. His Pontifical Academy for Life has been mired by controversy, often spear-led by him personally, regarding the Catholic Church’s moral teaching.

The only other statement from a Vatican official in any capacity regarding the Olympic’s opening ceremony is that from Archbishop Charles Scicluna. The Maltese prelate is adjunct secretary of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and sent a message to the French ambassador of Malta, noting his “distress and great disappointment at the insult to us Christians.”

The French bishops’ conference was joined by numerous U.S. bishops and others in condemning the Olympics opening ceremony, some considerably more vigorously than others.

Spain’s Bishop José Munilla termed the show “blasphemous & deplorable,” and added that “[o]ur culture is giving its last breaths in the midst of woke decadence.”

“Fundamentalist Islamism rubs its hands together seeing how we ourselves ‘commit suicide’ spiritually and physically,” Bishop Munilla added.

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said the ceremony reflected “secular fundamentalism” having “infiltrated the Olympics, even to the point of blaspheming the religion of over a billion people,” while Bishop Joseph Strickland called it a “new low for our human community.”

To this is added the declaration of Cardinal Gerhard Müller, who attested that by the “sacrilegious and vulgar representation” the Olympics body “has managed in one fell swoop to sully the noble face of the Olympics and to offend millions of believers around the world.”

Nor has the reaction to the drag queen ceremony been limited to religious figures, an aspect that makes the Pope’s silence even more striking.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson stated that “[t]he war on our faith and traditional values knows no bounds today,” and tech billionaire Elon Musk has issued a number of criticisms, including the warning that “[u]nless there is more bravery to stand up for what is fair and right, Christianity will perish.”