Catholic League President Bill Donohue told Newsmax on Monday that "all hell's going to break loose" at the 2024 Paris Olympics if the closing ceremony on Aug. 11 mocks Christians similar to the opening ceremony.
"This was an obscene attack on our religion," Donohue said on "Newsline." "It was all intentional. None of it was by mistake and then they tried to lie about it on top of that. And that didn't go over too well."
Catholics and other Christians were outraged after a parody tableau during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games used drag queens to portray Christ's Last Supper. Donohue said the incident is part of a larger battle between good and evil.
"There's no question about it," he said. "It's basically the people who accept the Judeo-Christian understanding of man and society versus the secular militants. What you saw at the Olympics is an expression of secular militancy.
"Not only was there a guy, [artistic director Thomas] Jolly, a homosexual activist who was responsible for this stunt, but, quite frankly, all the fingers point to the French leaders — [French President Emmanuel] Macron, the mayor of Paris [Anne] Hidalgo, the person who's in charge of the Olympics himself.
"That's why I've written to International Olympic Committee [President] Thomas Bach, who is not affiliated with this. He's not to blame, but it's under his purview. We want an investigation of the French officials. When did they know about it? Why did they give their approval to this? They are at least complicit."
Donohue noted that it seems to be socially acceptable to mock Catholics and Christians generally while such behavior would not be tolerated by other faiths.
"It's always our religion, isn't it?" he said. "They never choose Islam — I wonder why? — they don't choose other religions, and I'm not asking for equal opportunity here. If anything, they should be equal opportunity with us. They should exercise restraint and show respect.
"This was all intentional, and we've asked now that Jolly, the guy who gave us this opening ceremony, he should not be allowed to do the closing ceremony. That's why we contacted this Bach from the IOC about this. Aug. 11 is when they have the closing ceremony. If they pull off something like this again, which I don't think they will, then all hell is going to break loose."
Donohue said that he doesn't like it when people are not upfront about being a bigot toward a certain group.
"If you're going to be a bigot, just be an honest bigot," he said. "If somebody were to write the N-word with spray paint on the monument of [Rev.] Martin Luther King [Jr.], we'd know that he's a bigot, wouldn't we? We wouldn't say, Well, it's just artistic expression. If somebody put a swastika on a synagogue, we know that that's hate speech. And that's what we have to call it. This is hate speech."
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Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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