Whore of Babylon

One of Candy's more adamant Catholic -church bashers was Rachel who left this comment.

Roman Catholicism is the Great Whore. The Bible describes the church of Rome as a garishly dressed harlot with a chalice full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication, because she adopted many pagan customs to seduce her followers into spiritual adultery. This has been the near universal understanding of God's true saints for 2000 years. But she is not alone, for the churches of the Protestant Reformation are her harlot daughters by retaining many of her sacramental and liturgical corruptions (Dan 7:1-28; II Thess 2:3-12; I Tim 4:1-3; Rev 13:1-18; 17:1-18; 18:1-24; 19:1-4).

I got to thinking about the phrase "Whore of Babylon" and decided to do some reading. I found this information over at ETWN -Whore of Babylon written by Colin Donovan, STL
(Colin B. Donovan, STL is Vice President for Theology at EWTN. A layman, he has the Licentiate in Sacred Theology)

Judging by the criteria of biblical fundamentalism (literal words literally
understood) it is certain that there is no mention of the Catholic Church in the
book of Revelation as the Whore of Babylon. By contortions of interpretation
(not biblical literalism) some groups and individuals equate the Whore in
Revelation 17:9 with the Catholic Church since Rome is the famous city of seven
hills and the Church's principal See is Rome. This position is untenable, both
factually and from the only words of Scripture which tell us of the actual
doctrine of the Antichrist, those of the apostle John in his letters.

There would seem to be two choices, either interpret Rev 17:9 absolutely
literally or according to some interpretive key that is metaphorical,
allegorical or otherwise non-literal. Lets look first at literal interpretation.

"The seven heads represent seven hills on which the woman sits." First
of all, no Pope has ever lived or had his "seat" (cathedra or cathedral) on any
of the seven hills of Rome. These hills are small hillocks (Capitoline,
Palatine, Esquiline, Aventine and three lesser "bumps" in central Rome) where
the religion and government of pagan Rome was situated. The Catholic Church's
headquarters at the Lateran (the cathedral) and at the Vatican (where the Pope
lives) does not coincide with them. At the time that John wrote Revelation the
Christians of Rome lived mostly in Trastevere (trans Tiber), a district "across
the Tiber" from the City and adjacent to the Vatican hill where St. Peter was
crucified and buried. The Vatican is on top of that burial site and is today its
own city-state distinct from Rome and Italy.

So, of what was St. John
speaking when he wrote Revelation on the island of Patmos around 96 AD?
Obviously of the pagan imperial system situated on the Seven Hills, especially
the Capitoline (the religious and political center) and the Palatine (the
imperial palace). This pagan power persecuted the Church of Rome in Nero's day
(64-67 AD), and in the mid-90s under Domitian was persecuting Christians
throughout the Roman world. Domitian was considered by the people a
re-incarnation of the evil, but well-liked, Nero (the head that lives again).
While the antichrist Nero persecuted only the Christians of Rome, Domitian
extended that persecution throughout the empire. Both are thus types of the
final persecutor, the Antichrist.

Why the cryptic name Babylon? First,
the historical Babylon was the pagan power which persecuted the People of God,
the Jews, between 610 and 538 BC, destroying the Temple and dispersing the
people. The Romans inherited that mantle of infamy when they destroyed the
Temple in 70 AD, and, more importantly, persecuted the new People of God, the
Church. Thus, St. Peter, writing from Rome refers to as "Babylon" (1 Pt. 5:13) -
a name any Jew or Christian familiar with the Old Testament would know.

How does this relate to the Antichrist? The future Antichrist will be a
world-wide power, essentially pagan, which will persecute the Catholic Church
(and orthodox Christians in general) everywhere, as the Babylonians persecuted
the Jews and 1st century Rome the Church. These are biblical types! The Babylon
of John's day, Rome, stands for the kingdom of the future Antichrist and is no
more likely to be situated in Italy than Rome needed to be situated in Babylonia
(modern Iraq). John was informing his readers of these prophetic types by
drawing their attention to the contemporary fulfillment they found in pagan
Rome. The Antichrist will come out of the Christian world (Greco-Roman
civilization) to be sure (1 John 2:19), but America is as much an inheritor of
that civilization as Europe and just as likely to be the source of the
Antichrist.

Finally, after distorting the text and history to read what
they want into the Bible, and thereby obtaining God's "blessing" on their hatred of the Catholic Church, some "Christians" ignore the only texts of Scripture which tells us about the religious leanings of the Antichrist. The Catholic faith being a religion you would think they would see what it teaches on the only criteria the Bible actually gives about the Antichrist. In St. John's
letters (1 John 4, 2 John 1), he tells us that the spirit of the Antichrist
denies the Incarnation (the Son of God becoming man) and thereby also the
Trinity (the Father and the Spirit, too). This is the spirit of the Antichrist.
There is not a single text in 2000 years, including the new Catechism of the
Catholic Church, where the Catholic Church, her popes, her bishops, her official
teachings, her saints, or her acknowledged ecclesiastical authors, deny the
Word-made-flesh or the Blessed Trinity. Instead, all of Christianity owes the
preservation of these Truths to the Catholic Church, whose great Councils
formulated them and whose saints and popes have defended them to this day, often
at the cost of martyrdom. The present pope, John Paul II, has written three
great encyclical (circular) letters on the Trinity, one for each Divine Person,
and he has without a doubt preached Jesus Christ to more people than any other
person in human history. The Catholic Church does not have the spirit of the
Antichrist but of God, since no one without the Spirit can say "Jesus is Lord"
(1 Cor. 12:3), something the Church and Catholics always have done and continue
to do!