Last week, we were joined by Dr. Brad Wilcox, Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia and the Future of Freedom Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, to discuss marriage and why it is a good thing (statistically, physically, spiritually, etc.). We also talked about how marriage (and the family generally) and especially Christian teachings on marriage and the family (as held to and championed by the Catholic Church for nearly 2,000 years) are under constant attack by secular culture and particularly Hollywood, mainstream media, academia and (increasingly) even corporate America. This is a conversation for anyone who is married, wants to be married or wonders why anyone would ever get married. Check it out here.
On the topics of marriage and the family, I have been doing a lot of thinking about these themes in the past couple months. I’m not sure if it is because the marriage between my wife and I was only recently validated (i.e., our marriage is now a Christian one, not merely a civil one) or because we are expecting our first (of many, God willing) child(ren) but, whatever the reason, I find myself contemplating, caring about and championing pro-family, pro-life and pro-marriage views more than I ever imagined I would. I am an obsessive reader and I read 50-100 books, 100-200 academic journal articles and countless theological, philosophical and historical articles every year. Recently, my readings seem to gravitate overwhelmingly (either coincidentally or providentially or intentionally) to marriage, children and the family (if you know of any books I should be reading, please reach out!) and I find myself reminiscing about my own childhood.
When I was a child, in my family, living with my parents who have now been married for 40+ years, watching the Olympics was something that often brought us together. We were a sports-oriented family and I played basically every team sport imaginable: hockey, football (“soccer”), American football, baseball, basketball, etc. My father, despite his incredibly busy schedule as a Baptist pastor, often coached and volunteered with the teams that my brother, sister and I played on. I have thus always had a deep love of sports, and the Olympics are the highest platform and form of competition for the majority of elite athletes in the world.
Which brings me to the purpose of this blog entry at the intersect of the family, the Church and the Olympics…
Last Friday, during the 2024 Paris Olympics’ opening ceremonies, DJ and producer Barbara Butch (a popular LGBTQ+ personality) alongside more than a dozen transvestites with a child in their midst posed for a scene eerily reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” which shows Jesus and his disciples sharing their last Passover meal before his betrayal, trial and crucifixion. For us Catholics, this image goes far beyond what even non-Catholic Christians consider. This image portrays the scene in which Christ institutes the Holy Eucharist, which is “the source and summit of the Christian life” per the teachings of the Catholic Church. As the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops explains:
"The Lord Jesus, on the night before he suffered on the cross, shared one last meal with his disciples. During this meal our Savior instituted the sacrament of his Body and Blood. He did this in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the ages and to entrust to the Church a memorial of his death and resurrection. The Institution of the Eucharist is written down in the four Gospels: Matthew 26:26-30; Mark 14:22-26; Luke 22:14-20; [and] John 6:22-59 (i.e., The Bread of Life Discourse)"
The Eucharist for a Catholic Christian is a Sacrament and it is almost impossible to adequately explain the importance of this Sacrament for our Christian lives.
As Elise Ann Allen reports:
"After the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games inspired shock and drew sharp criticism over an apparent drag parody of the Last Supper, Catholic leaders in France and around the world have condemned the incident."
She might be putting that mildly. She explains the artistic depiction:
"At the center was a woman in a low-cut dress wearing a large silver headdress, reminiscent of the halo behind Jesus’s head in many artistic depictions of the Last Supper, indicating his divine status as the son of God. The woman made a heart shape with her hands... [and] as models then took the stage for an impromptu fashion show, the Last Supper characters swayed on the sidelines as a little girl stood with them. Later, a large serving tray was placed on the stage, with the top being removed to reveal a scantily clad man painted head to toe in blue, apparently evoking the Greek God Dionysus in a bid to point to the “absurdity of violence between human beings,” according to the official English-language Olympic Games profile on social media platform X.... Organizers came under fire for the spectacle, with critics condemning not only the provocative nature of the drag show and the apparent mockery of Christianity, but also for the presence of a child at the table alongside the men in drag."
Organizers have tried to distance themselves from any controversy, some of them asserting the depiction was not of Christ and His disciples. I would like to take them at their word and give them the benefit of the doubt, but that explanation seems ludicrously inadequate in a nation with as deep a history both with Catholicism and with ridiculing religion as France has. The likelihood that nobody involved in the planning, producing or performing of this act had any sense that this would be taken as an artistic assault against Christians (that was literally the exact and instantaneous result once the act was performed) is vanishingly slim. The most effective of all lies contain just enough truth to make those being lied to question themselves.
Personally, I was deeply distressed by what seemed to be an explicit mocking of the Christian religion on what is literally the world’s biggest and most public stage. And don't even get me started on the presence of a child among a crowd of grown men dressed as scantily clad women. Even if this had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity (which seems impossible), a solitary child surrounded by grown men who are mocking women and womanhood is itself ridiculous and distressing.
It wasn't just Christians who were disgusted. Jewish commentators and people of other faiths also decried the performance on social media. Evidence here:
Even Elon Musk, no friend to Christians or religion generally, called the performance “extremely disrespectful to Christians.”
Were all of these people wrong in their interpretation of this display?
As a Christian, I know to expect hatred from the world. Our Lord prepared us for this (John 15:18-21):
"Jesus said to his disciples: “If the world hates you, know that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.”"
And as a Catholic specifically, I am well-accustomed to overt hostility. Especially from secular culture but even from other religious communities. For example, the religion my wife was born into and raised in, Seventh-day Adventism, officially teaches that the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon as described in the Book of Revelation, that the pope is the Antichrist and that the papacy is the seven-headed beast from the sea in the Book of Revelation. To be Catholic often means being despised.
But... even at the Olympics!?
Would anyone dare to mock Islam like this? Would anyone have the guts to pick an event depicted in the Quran and then have transvestites portray the persons therein? We all know the answer to these questions.
I try to avoid social media as much as possible. I don’t have accounts for or use X/Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, etc. and I stick to Facebook and WhatsApp (mostly to be in contact with my wife’s family in Colombia). But I do use LinkedIn extensively. I have a network there that is not large but is not small either (currently around 5,100 followers) and it was my use of LinkedIn last May to express my dismay as both a Christian and an investment professional over Target’s selling of items that promote the transgender ideology to children (even infants) that led a business I had been a long-time director of to request my resignation (which was a blessing, as I loathed the business and was eager to escape my responsibilities with it) and led to me being put on a leave of absence by my long-term employer. I resigned both the directorship and my full-time employment, and I have never regretted doing so. Despite attempts then and thereafter by certain people, some of whom I considered friends, to use “cancel culture” against me (not to mention lying about what I actually said), in the intervening 13 months my LinkedIn network has grown ~15% and I launched with Rigel this wee podcast which (while very small and modest) is growing and has been listened to by people on every continent (which we are humbled by).
Thus, on Saturday, after speaking with many fellow Christians who were as horrified and offended as I was by the depiction of the Last Supper at the opening ceremonies, and reflecting on what is the prudent thing for someone like me to do given my background, professional pursuits, lifestyle, etc. (the virtue of prudence is about making right decisions from a purely natural perspective, basically common sense and sound judgment in practical matters), I decided to share my views yet again on LinkedIn. You can see the post and what I said here.
Included in my words were the following:
"To my fellow Christians and people of good will who are as grieved by this as I am: we must not hate the individuals, but we can hate the ideologies that led them to this. To the people who planned, produced and performed this blasphemy: I’m sorry you feel the need to deny Christians the respect you yourselves seek. My wife and I prayed for you last night and we will continue to. To our child growing in [my wife’s] womb: mom and dad will raise you to show respect to others, no matter what they believe. Your standards for kindness and hospitality will be vastly higher than those espoused at the Olympics, which thanks to technology we will be able to refer back to forever.... To my fellow Catholics: let us take the words of Bishop Robert Barron in response to this disrespectful display seriously. “We Christians, we Catholics, should not be sheepish. We should resist. We should make our voices heard.” This post is part of my personal response to Bishop Barron’s call. My voice is but one and it is meaningless in the grand scheme of things. But it is what I have. If you are reading this and don’t like it, unfollow me or disconnect from me or try to “cancel” me. If you are reading this and it resonates, make your voice heard too."
See all of what Bishop Barron said here. And see his subsequent video in response to the alleged apology (which was actually a non-apology masquerading as one) of the organizing committee here. Almost as offensive as the display itself is the subsequent dismissive treatment by organizers (note how they have yet to actually concretely and unequivocally deny the act was indeed depicting the Last Supper), as if every single offended Christian and non-Christian is too stupid hear an explanation, or as if the army of art historians and artists themselves within the Catholic Church are incapable of seeing what the organizing committee so clearly sees.
In my post on LinkedIn, I invited people to abandon me and cancel me. These things don’t really scare me (anymore). What does scare me is the constant temptation I experience to revert back to the cowardly “Christian of convenience” I used to be, the one who claimed Christ and then never defended Him or followed Him when doing so would be hard or uncomfortable.
My LinkedIn post went viral. In ~24 hours it had been viewed 34,000+ times and generated plenty of sharing, liking and commenting. Evidence here:
I frankly don’t care about that, nor do I care to address the vast majority of comments on the post (many of which, even though supportive, are simply inconsistent with my faith).
What I do care about is my Christian faith, living a committed Christian life, defending Christ and His Church (not that He needs me to do so), setting an example of using the tools and talents God gives (each of) us to be a witness to Christ (especially for my wife, our future family and the parishioners in our two small parishes) and not allowing myself to be the hypocrite Christian (i.e., worshipping and kneeling before Christ at church and then betraying him with my words, or lack thereof, outside of church) I am so tempted to be.
How each individual responds (or does not respond) to the Olympics is of course a matter of personal judgment. It seems a shame to punish the athletes who have worked so hard to get to the pinnacle of their craft by not watching the games, but that is indeed what my wife and I will do. Which sucks. As I said above, I love the Olympics and it brings back dear memories of my childhood and my family. But the one thing I have in this earthly life that I can never get more of is time, and I just cannot justify giving any of that precious and finite resource (beyond the time to craft the LinkedIn post and this blog entry) to those who benefit from what seems open mockery of my faith before the whole world. Like I said above, even the supposed apology from the organizing committee of the games is a false apology. I will choose to spend the time I would have spent enjoying the Olympics instead with my wife and our Christian family (i.e., friends in our parishes), praying and reading Scripture, learning more about our faith and sharing it with others. I think all of my recent obsessive reading about marriage, children and family has been preparing me for decisions like this one, when I have to choose between what I want (e.g., to watch the Olympics) and what God wants for me (e.g., to prioritize Him and those who He has put in my life).
Whoever you are, whatever you believe and whatever you think of the events discussed above, my sincere hope is that you (and I) do not ever get to a place in our lives wherein engaging in anything publicly risks demeaning and belittling the beliefs of someone else.
On the podcast this week, we are being joined by Andrew DeBerry to chat about innovation and finance from a Christian perspective. We hope you will tune in!
God bless,
Travis
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