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As part of the Olympic opening ceremony, one of the acts included a Gendarmerie officer riding on a metal horse on the parade route along the Seine River. The horsewoman was wearing a cape printed with the Flag of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

A user shared a short clip of the rider on the horse on microblogging platform X and wrote, “If you have any doubt what is going on at the Olympics opening ceremony. A single rider on a pale horse is straight out of the book of Revelation,” and then quoted from the book, “And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and the name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.”

Paris Olympics opening ceremony denounced by bishops and Catholics globally for mocking Christianity

“We are thinking of all the Christians on every continent who have been hurt by the outrageousness and provocation of certain scenes. We want them to understand that the Olympic celebration goes far beyond the ideological biases of a few artists,” the bishops stressed.

For the bishops, the values disseminated by sport and Olympism must contribute to the “need for unity and fraternity that our world so desperately needs, while respecting everyone’s convictions, around the sport that brings us together.”

Bishop Emmanuel Gobilliard of Digne, the special representative of the Holy See for the 2024 Paris Olympics, said that he “did not watch the whole opening ceremony,” as he was praying. “It is my priority as a priest,” he told OSV News, adding he saw part of the ceremony and “found it very beautiful with the athletes (and) the Olympic flame.”