PADERBORN, Germany (LifeSiteNews) — One of Germany’s most prominent cathedrals hosted a sacrilegious show involving shirtless male dancers and a grotesque “performance” with raw, headless chickens, sparking a public outcry.

In the Paderborn Cathedral of Westphalia, three dancers performed a routine in which they swung, threw, and “walked” headless chicken carcasses in diapers as if they were little children while singing “Meat is Meat,” a play on the Austrian pop song “Live is Life.”

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Archbishop Udo Markus Bentz, and German officials attended the show as part of a greater exhibit titled “775 – Westphalia,” in commemoration of the 1,250th anniversary of the historic German region.

Some have considered the performance to be a mockery of the Eucharist, the Body of Christ, and Catholics and non-Catholics alike have denounced the show as a “desecration” of the sacred cathedral.

Maria Wirth, an outspoken Hindu, declared in response to the show that Christianity is “under attack, and maybe undermined from the top.”

“It was not a ‘misjudgment’ as claimed. it was in all likelihood deliberate desecration,” she wrote on X. “The debasement of humanity is in full swing. Who is behind it? What is the purpose? Can it be stopped and turned around?”

The regional branch of the conservative Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party in Westphalia-Lippe has also condemned the show in a video, according to The European Conservative.

Over 21,000 have signed a petition to Archbishop Bentz asking him to apologize for his silent attendance and “inaction,” and to newly consecrate the cathedral, which they considered to be desecrated by the performance.

Those who launched the petition noted that “Disturbing, blasphemous representations are increasingly occurring” in churches around the world, such as a homosexual dance that was held in a Catholic church in Canada in 2019 and a blasphemous mockery of the Eucharist in a Mexican Catholic Church in 2023.

The performance at the Paderborn cathedral at the very least constitutes an act of sacrilege, as a profane and unworthy treatment of a church consecrated to God. Canon 1210 states:

In a sacred place, only those things are to be permitted which serve to exercise or promote worship, piety and religion. Anything out of harmony with the holiness of the place is forbidden. The Ordinary may, however, for individual cases, permit other uses, provided they are not contrary to the sacred character of the place.

Father Frank Unterhalt, a German diocesan priest and speaker of a group of faithful priests called Communio Veritatis, decried the event in the cathedral as an “abhorrent abuse” and a “pagan spectacle that was a mockery of the Lord and His Church.”

Unterhalt and the Communio Veritatis group thus called for “appropriate steps to be taken and for appropriate acts of penance and atonement to be performed to restore the honor of the Lord, to whom the Church belongs.”

“The cathedral must once again become a sacred space for the worship of the Most Holy Trinity!” he wrote.

The Metropolitan Chapter of the Archdiocese of Paderborn has since expressed “regret” that the performance has offended “religious feelings.”

“Such an effect was never intended and does not correspond to our expectations of this place with its special religious, historical, and cultural significance,” the chapter stated without alluding to the sacred nature of the church and its proper use.

“We take the reactions to the performance very seriously and have already begun revising our internal procedures. In the future, there will be a revised process for approving events in the cathedral, ensuring a more thorough review of the content.”