Even Muslim leaders are denouncing the pansexual pagan blasphemy of the Olympics opening ceremonies in Paris last Friday — and I doff my hat to them. They deny Jesus’s divinity, but revere Him as a prophet, so they weren’t thrilled to see Him played grotesquely by a lesbian, then upstaged by a figure of the murderous pagan god Dionysius. For once, that puts the Muslims on the same side as the Copts whom they persecute so energetically in Egypt.

While First Lady Jill Biden — whose husband Joe is recognized as a “devout Catholic” by the Vatican — effuses over how “spectacular” the Paris bacchanal was, Christians around the world are rightly fuming. Catholic bishops, American evangelicals, and thousands of orthodox Christians in between them on the high/low church spectrum are registering their outrage. So where can we go to hear crickets?

The Vatican. Pope Francis — one of the world’s foremost putatively religious figures — has not said one word critical of the pagan rites in Paris. That’s not out of timidity; this is a man who forthrightly claimed that Donald Trump wasn’t really a Christian for wanting to build a border wall. He took the time to send a message of support to a crackpot Communist conference in California that called for Catholics to hide illegal immigrants in churches and “disrupt Trump.” Francis routinely weighs in on issues like climate change, vaccination, criminal law, and countless other topics far outside his religious authority, much less his expertise as a former high school chemistry teacher.

But when a global cultural institution, the Olympics, mocks the Last Supper and venerates images of demons like Baal in a spectacle of sexual perversion and inversion, Francis goes silent.

The Natural Outcome

I won’t accuse him of cowardice here. Rather, I think he’s silent because he found the rites delightful. They represent in graphic terms what he has been doing to the Catholic Church since he took power — thanks to a conspiracy of faithless cardinals who earned excommunication by flouting church law. (See William Kilpatrick’s piece documenting that coup.)

Pope Francis is queering the church as thoroughly as the Olympics Committee has at its ceremonies. Not only does he promote gay activist Rev. James Martin, S.J., contributing an introduction to Martin’s new pro-LGBT book, but Francis’ Vatican approved festive mock “weddings” for same-sex couples in churches — and Martin promptly performed one, with mainstream media photographers at the ready. Worst of all, Francis appointed as the highest doctrinal authority in the Roman Catholic Church a prophet of pansexual heresy, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández. As we reported here at The Stream:

This Argentine priest — for decades one of Pope Francis’ closest cronies — wrote and published a seedy, explicit book in 1998 that abandoned Christian attitudes toward sexuality for occultist ones. The title is Mystical Passion: Spirituality and Sensuality. And Pope Francis knew all about the book, but appointed him anyway.

As Fernández claimed in that book, God

can make himself present when two human beings love each other and reach orgasm; and that orgasm, lived in the presence of God, can also be a sublime act of the presence of God.

Pope Francis: “God Made You Gay”

Not a word in that context about marriage, children, or even monogamy. Indeed, Fernandez’s statement could apply to two male strangers at a night club. Or even, I hate to say, a deviant priest and an abuse victim. Don’t forget what the pope told ex-seminarian Juan Carlos Cruz, who fell into the LGBT lifestyle after getting molested by a priest:

Pope Francis: “God made you gay.” https://t.co/p9XJqdb5xO

— James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) May 19, 2018

As I wrote back in January,

Since Fernández includes in his 1998 book a long, creepy discussion of a 16-year-old girl’s sexual fantasies (which he bizarrely links to Jesus), I must point out that Fernández’s lauding of orgasm in itself would serve very nicely in the rationalizations of a priest molesting a boy — as then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick (another of Francis’ close allies) did, before Francis put him in charge of negotiating the still partly-secret Vatican alliance with Communist China. Indeed, victims of clerical abuse have offered many testimonies of their molesters using precisely this kind of language as part of their grooming process.

If Francis isn’t chuckling with delight over the opening ceremonies, it’s likely only because his internet went dark like the city of Paris — where only the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus mysteriously continued shedding His light.

During the power outage in Paris, notice the thing that’s still fully lit: Sacre Coeur Church.

Zoom in on the dark photo.

Incredible find by @GalahadofMalta, especially in context of the Olympics anti-Christian opening. pic.twitter.com/g1KPRzrone

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) July 28, 2024

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or coauthor of 10 books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. His newest book is No Second Amendment, No First.