It’s been a strange Olympics. The most inspiring physical performance to date has been Celine Dion, back from a debilitating neurological disorder, serenading Paris upon the Eiffel Tower. Down below on the clay courts, Rafael Nadal, beloved like Celine, is no longer able to perform.
As Celine might suggest to Rafa musically, it’s Time to Say Goodbye. There was the intense monitoring of fecal pollution in the Seine. After some postponements, E.
coli levels in the river dropped sufficiently to permit the triathletes to plunge in. They conceded that the post-sewage Seine did not taste great. Canada’s women’s soccer team is mired in a cheating scandal about monitoring of a different kind, using drones to surveil opponents.
That too stinks. In boxing it is chromosomes that are monitored. Imane Khelif from Algeria had been disqualified from the women’s world championships last year for failing a gender eligibility test; she has XY chromosomes , according to the president of the International Boxing Association.
Khelif was allowed to compete in Paris and battered her Italian opponent so hard that she quit after 46 seconds “to save my life.” That’s all before we get to the religious scandal. No, I don’t mean the blasphemy at the opening ceremonies.
Blasphemy is an attack on piety. I mean the perennial scourge of hypocrisy. Blasphemy is usually hurled by non-believers against believers; hypocrisy undermines the faith from within by those, as Isaiah prophesied, who honour God with the lips but whose hearts remain far away.
The most fashionable religion of the Olympic elites — the International Olympic Committee, sports federation apparatchiks, French government bureaucrats, the sybarites of sports diplomacy — is climate change. Their faith has its own high priests, moral codes, heretics and public sinners. So it was no surprise when France announced that they would host the greenest — the most pious — games ever.
After all, Paris itself was the Sinai of this newest covenant, the 2015 climate accord. Thus the commandments came down from Mont Blanc. Use recycled venues and medals — only one new facility was built, and the medals are made from recycled metals, including bits from the Eiffel Tower.
The Olympic Village — housing some 10,000 athletes — would not be air conditioned. The beds would be made of stiff cardboard. The menu would be 60 per cent vegan.
No chauffeured cars or vans for competitors; athletes could sweat it out on the Metro with everyone else. Everyone else using the Olympics app to get around was advised how much carbon they would save if they walked. Walkers would not be given sinful water bottles in the searing heat; they must have their own container to ward off dehydration.
There was some sense regarding venues. The era of building expensive white elephants solely for the Olympics wisely has come to an end. The athletes have been seeing red over all the green.
They can’t sleep well due to hard beds and hot rooms. They can’t get the protein they need from the menu. They can’t get to the venues without tiring from the trip.
It was to be expected. Every religion requires penance. Asceticism is a path to moral improvement.
The comforts of today are sacrificed in the promise of a better future. The athletes just need to be more devout. Except that environmental rigour is not required of all.
The priestly caste is in luxury hotels, with air-conditioned rooms and chauffeured cars. Special indulgences are granted to the favoured. LeBron James and his fellow NBA players and the stars of international tennis are not in the Olympic Village.
Priests in every age have been guilty of hypocrisy. It is corrosive, but a constant temptation. Jesus denounced the clergy who “tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger” (Matthew 23:4).
[itals] Mutatis mutandis [itals], it was divine instruction about air conditioning. It goes back farther than Jesus. The prophet Ezekiel excoriated the wicked shepherds of Israel for living off the sheep rather than sacrificing for them: “Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flocks?” (Ezekiel 34:2).
Actual lamb for the climate priests; soy-based mutton for the athletes. For decades now climate advocates fly into bloated conferences, emitting carbon like great clouds of incense. And after the jaw-dropping hypocrisy of the latest climate conference being held in Dubai, perhaps Paris deserves a pass.
Except that this hypocrisy is especially galling. The high metabolism athletes get faux burgers, while the corpulent executives gaze at menus featuring meats flown in from overseas, or graze at buffets groaning with caloric excess. Those in need are denied while their betters may indulge.
One expects that the athletes at the origins of the games in Greece were fed better. Certainly the kings David and Solomon fed their people better at the great festivals. It’s not clear whether Marie Antoinette, who appeared beheaded at the opening ceremonies, actually said “let them eat cake” when she heard that the people had no bread.
At the Olympic Village, they might welcome cake, instead of desserts made without butter and cream. Paris, long before becoming a climate capital, was a culinary one. That the culinary [itals] caput mundi [itals] would not feed its guests well is clear proof that religious extremism infects faiths both ancient and modern.
National Post.
