The "Whore of Babylon"

It's a common fundamentalist claim to say that Rome and the Catholic Church is the "Whore of Babylon" mentioned in the Book of Revelation, whom is a destructive and terrible figure in the vision. There are several traits said about the Whore of Babylon and I think it's important to note all of them.

We're literally debating an interpretation of a vision right now so bear with me.

>seven hills
Revelation 17:9 states that the woman rides a great beast and its seven heads are "seven hills/mountains". The "seven hills" explanation is used to justify the woman being Rome, as Rome is famously known for being built on seven hills. However, the word for hills that the original text uses is in the New Testament sixty-five times and only three cases are they not translated to "mountains" by the King James Version. Other versions of the Bible amend this and say there are seven mountains as there is no reason to use the same word in two different ways. Further, the next verse says there are seven kings for these seven hills/mountains so it cannot be applied to the Catholic Church. The word for mountain is often used for kingdoms.

And Vatican City is on the other side of the river from those seven hills in Rome.

>clothed in purple and scarlet
This is a common argument used to say that the church is the Whore of Babylon because the Bishops wear purple and the Cardinals wear scarlet. This is a strange turn of events, as people are okay with understanding the woman as a city and other figurative things and yet people are taking the colors literally, when they could mean royalty and blood (purple being historically a color for royalty and blood being red). What makes it stranger is she is told to be clothed in purple and scarlet and yet there are more colors than that in Catholic clergy - the dominant colors being black and white.

>decked in precious gold and pearls
This is a solid argument for the Catholic Church, as it holds great art made over the past 2,000 years. Much of the gold is gold leaf, of course, but the argument is sound just the same.

>golden cup
The Whore has "a golden cup in her hand, full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication."

The only "cup" the Catholic Church could possibly be known for is the Eucharistic Chalice but that is not always made of gold nor is it terribly common to have it be gold. Further, there is absolutely no reason to assume the cup carrying the wine used in communion is "full of the abominations and filthiness of her fornification" rather than just the wine used for communion.

>THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH

This quote is often used as an argument, calling perceived Catholic "heresies" as abominations against natural order. These heresies are usually easily to dismiss but the main argument that is used is about priestly celibacy and comments on how priestly celibacy is against natural order and breeds "harlots", referencing the Catholic sex abuse scandal. Priestly celibacy is a discipline of the clergy, not a doctrine. Further, the Catholic Church only has it be a discipline in the Latin Rite and celibacy was a recommended path to take by Paul himself.

These fundamentalists have again lurched to an absurdly literal interpretation. You should interpret the harlotry of the Whore’s daughters as the same as their mother’s, which is why she is called their mother in the first place. This would make it spiritual or political fornication or the persecution of Christian martyrs (cf. 17:2, 6, 18:6). Instead, we're told that these harlots are actual priests doing actual fornication. This ignores all the evidence against the claim that priestly celibacy led to the sex abuse scandal.

>drunk on the blood of Martyrs

The claim here is basically saying that the Catholic Church was going into a wild excess (drunk) due to the death of martyrs. The mistake here is thinking the drunkedness is coming from a zeal for the glory of God, rather than a zeal in the death of them. The former there is literally nothing wrong with as long as it is not misplaced and the latter being an obvious issue.

Of course, saying it's misplaced is often the key argument here, citing the crusades and bad things done out of the faith but bad things done out of faith is not restricted to Catholicism's history whatsoever and Catholicism's bad history is largely propaganda done by Protestants during the Reformation Period. There's no reason to think this is the Catholic Church without expressing bias.

Further, when this was written, Catholicism had no social power so there would be no immediate reason to think it is of Catholicism.

>Reigns over Kings

This assumes it's Catholicism because the pope appointed Christian royalty and ruled over them. This ignores that the period in which this occurred was not anywhere near the time this vision was written down and has not existed for centuries.

>Well who is the Whore of Babylon then?

We don't immediately know but there are a lot of educated guesses. Pagan Rome is the most often used example, particularly with how 'Babylon' was an old codeword used by Israelites at the time for Pagan Rome. On top of that many theologians say that Jerusalem also fits the description and some apply America to this.