The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics has been criticised over an apparent parody of the Last Supper that featured drag queens.
Over a dozen drag queens posed along a table in a scene reminscent of Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting that depicts Jesus' final meal with his disciples before his execution.
During the scene, broadcast live on Friday evening from a rain-soaked Paris, the drag queens could be seen writhing suggestively along the table on either side of a woman appearing to represent Jesus. She stands still in the centre wearing a headpiece reminiscent of a halo and holding her hands in a heart shape.
The scene has sparked a backlash on social media and come under particular fire for appearing to include a child.
The CEO of the UK Evangelical Alliance, Gavin Calver, said that while he hoped the Paris Olympics would be a great success, he called the depiction "utterly insensitive, unnecessary and offensive".
"However, it really was appalling to see Christianity so openly mocked in the opening ceremony with the unbelievably crass portrayal of the Last Supper," he wrote on X.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has recently called himself a "cultural Christian", wrote on X that the performance was "extremely disrespectful to Christians", adding in another post, "Christianity has become toothless."
Some social media commentators called the scene "woke" while others suggested that organisers would not have mocked Islam in this way.
American Catholic Bishop Robert Barron called it "gross mockery of the Last Supper" and questioned why France felt the need to "mock this very central moment in Christianity" on an occasion that is supposed to show off the best of the country's culture. He went on to say that France's culture "is grounded very much in Christianity".
"Would they ever have dared mock Islam in a similar way? Would they ever have dreamed of mocking in this gross, public way a scene from the Quran? As I say, we all know the answer to that," he said in a video posted to X.
Podcaster Rev Daniel French responded to the bishop's post by calling on the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, to issue a similar statement.
"The opening Olympic ceremony mocked Christianity and the Last Supper in a way it never would have for any other religion," he said.
