The Slovak government has announced it will boycott the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics, condemning the event’s opening ceremony as an insult to Christianity. Deputy Prime Minister Tomas Taraba made the announcement on social media, explaining that he canceled his plans to attend the event in France.
Taraba, who has been handling some of Prime Minister Robert Fico’s responsibilities following an assassination attempt in May, expressed his outrage at the LGBTQ-themed parody of the Last Supper of Jesus Christ, which sparked global Christian backlash. He criticized the opening ceremony for turning the Olympics into a platform for progressive political messages rather than focusing on sports.
“I was supposed to represent Slovakia at the closing ceremony, but this Olympics will be forever written as a repulsive symbol and degenerate decadence,” Taraba said. He accused the organizers of “abusing the beauty of sport and turning it into progressive political theater.”
Taraba’s Slovak National Party, which holds strong Christian right-wing views, is in coalition with Fico’s leftist-populist Direction-Social Democracy government. Fico’s administration combines left-wing economic policies with strong nationalist stances, opposing globalist projects like Ukraine’s membership in NATO and the EU.
The Deputy Prime Minister blasted the Olympic organizers for their “insult to Christianity” and the promotion of LGBT ideology. He noted that the opening ceremony footage had been removed from YouTube due to its offensive content, stating, “The insults to Christianity and the presented decadence have reached such a level that they have offended the whole normal world, which understands the difference between culture and garbage.”
Catholic Bishop Robert Barron echoed these sentiments, calling the drag queen scene a “gross, flippant mockery” of a central Christian moment.
Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the opening ceremony, claimed the similarities to the Last Supper were coincidental and that his intent was to create a “great pagan festival.”
