Pan is Dead: Reflecting on the 2024 Olympic Opening Ceremony

This article won’t say anything that hasn’t been said, it’s just that I must say it too. In the process of which I can summarize the state of affairs and posit of reflection on religion in the modern world.

      The opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games has received far more attention than most any since the Games modern revival in the late 19th century. The publicity of the Olympics’ opening ceremony is due to a flamboyant parody featuring drag queens reclining around a table in a bizarre resemblance to da Vinci’s Last Supper mural. (I won’t show the image, but you can find the image with a cursory Google search or by clicking here.)

      Now, alternative interpretations have been pushed forward by the artistic director and others that the inspiration for the fiasco was modeled on Feast of the Gods by 17th c. Durch artist Jan van Bijlert’s. Notwithstanding, a spokesperson for the 2024 Paris Olympics acknowledged the controversial depiction was indeed inspired by da Vinci. Moreover, at least two of the performers are reported to have confirmed that the tableau was intended to imitate Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper. Meanwhile, the central performer of the living tableau posted (and since deleted) on Instagram a side-by-side of the tableau and the Last Supper with the caption “OH YES! OH YES! THE NEW GAY TESTAMENT!”

      So, the substitutive “clarifications” put forward to rebuttal the backlash seem a rather bland attempt at gaslighting Christians who were indignant – to say the least – by the Olympic display. Who knew the Olympic torch was gaslit? But, here is the point of this article: even if the perverse scene was a solely distasteful misunderstanding and the opening ceremony’s dance routine was a sincere modern take on Greco-Roman religion and not a “gross mockery of the Last Supper,” it remains a celebration of neo-paganism, which is nevertheless “an outright rejection of Christian principles and belief.”[1]

      The rise of neo-paganism coincides with the rise of atheism. Man is a spiritual creature; when atheism attempts to erase the spiritual world, man creates his own: which is paganism. Pagan Athens can at least claim ignorance of Christ, but pagan France – a historically Christian country – must openly reject Christ to celebrate paganism. Is it certainly true that the Olympic Games are pagan in its roots, but they should not be a return to paganism. The Games experienced a revitalization after an almost 1,500-thousand-year absence after dying amidst a Christian culture in late antiquity. (Traditionally, the Olympics Games are said to have been banned by the Emperor Theodosius in 393 A.D.) G.K. Chesterton in The Everlasting Man re-emphasized the death of paganism saying that, “it is said truly in a sense that Pan died because Christ was born.” Strangely enough, the pagan foundations of the Olympic Games have come full circle, attempting to avenge its death against the very culture that overthrew it a millennium and a half ago.

      In this quest for revenge, paganism’s only recourse, and especially neo-paganism, is to mock Christianity. A child mocks another when they cannot strike a blow. We mock what we do not understand, what makes us feel insecure, and paganism cannot understand Christianity. Ironically enough, Christianity and especially Catholicism has been dubbed “the last acceptable prejudice.”[2] Mocking the Church has become a culturally acceptable coping mechanism, but it is not new. From the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (an ‘order’ of queer and trans people who dress in a mockery of Catholic nuns to expose religious bigotry) who were honored at a Los Angeles Dodgers’ baseball game with a “Heroes of the Community” award in 2023 to the anonymous 2nd century ‘Alexamenos graffiti’ which depicts a young man worshiping a crucified, donkey-headed man, Christians have always been mocked.[3] It is a cross Jesus warns about from the onset of his ministry, “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first” (John 15:18) as he predicted He would be “handed over to the chief priests and the scribes…[and] over to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified” (Matthew 20:18-19).

      Neo-paganism must grapple with Christianity in a way paganism has not had to in 1,500 thousand years. We should not be surprised that neo-paganism ‘deals with’ Christianity in the same manner as its ancient predecessor: mockery.

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[1] Bishop Robert Baron; Fr. Vincent Lampert on "Pints with Aquinas"

[2] Jenkins, Philip. The New Anti-Catholicism : The Last Acceptable Prejudice. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

[3] Description taken from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence website