The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. – Revelations 17:4
John the Revelator received prophecies from Jesus about what has traditionally been interpreted as the Roman Catholic Church. The excerpt above is just a part of that prophecy, which speaks of the opulent, prosperity-dripping extravagance of a church that made its wealth by taking advantage of the poor and selling purported salvation for the trappings of modern fashion.
John Gill, the early Baptist commentator and predecessor to Charles Spurgeon said of the passage:
[This] may denote her hypocrisy, she being gilded with these things, as the word signifies, when she was inwardly rotten, corrupt, and filthy; and may point out the things by which persons have been enticed into the communion of the church of Rome, and to comply with her idolatrous worship and practices; and may also respect the prodigious riches, which have, by various methods, been brought into the pope’s coffers; these, with other things, are reckoned among the merchandise of Babylon
How ironic, then, that the Vatican is teaming up with Vogue Magazine and the Versace fashion line to showcase the influence of the papacy on gaudy, riches-doused clothing lines for immodest men and women.
An exhibition on Vatican wealth and style will begin on May 10 and is called Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination. The website says:
The Costume Institute’s spring 2018 exhibition—at The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters—will feature a dialogue between fashion and medieval art from The Met collection to examine fashion’s ongoing engagement with the devotional practices and traditions of Catholicism.
Serving as the cornerstone of the exhibition, papal robes and accessories from the Sistine Chapel sacristy, many of which have never been seen outside The Vatican, will be on view in the Anna Wintour Costume Center. Fashions from the early 20th century to the present will be shown in the Byzantine and medieval galleries, part of the Robert Lehman Wing, and at The Met Cloisters.
The event is sponsored by Versace, Vogue, and Conde’ Nost (a syndicate that sells Glamour Magazine, GQ, Vanity Fair, Allure, and Epicurious Magazines). You can find a video of some of the displays below.
The Vatican is loaning some of their most extravagant clothing items to the fashion icons to display the church’s wealth and their influence on fashion.
[Editor’s Note: HT Now the End Begins]
