"A woman in purple and scarlet, holding a gold cup, sitting on seven hills. Who else could it be but the Church of Rome?" Many sincere Christians read Revelation 17 that way. They deserve a careful answer.
Short answer: No. Revelation's harlot is a city, "the great city that has sovereignty over the kings of the earth," drunk on the blood of Christians. In St. John's day that was pagan imperial Rome, the persecutor of the Church. The Church is the victim in this story and the Bride of Christ, not the harlot.
Key verses on the whore of Babylon
- "Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth." (Revelation 17:5)
- "I saw that the woman was drunk on the blood of the holy ones and on the blood of the witnesses to Jesus." (Revelation 17:6)
- "The woman whom you saw represents the great city that has sovereignty over the kings of the earth." (Revelation 17:18)
- "In her was found the blood of prophets and holy ones and all who have been slain on the earth." (Revelation 18:24)
- "For the wedding day of the Lamb has come, his bride has made herself ready." (Revelation 19:7)
Scripture quotations are from the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE), © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
What Catholics Actually Teach
The Church reads herself in Revelation as the Bride, not the harlot. The union of Christ and the Church "is often expressed by the image of bridegroom and bride" (CCC 796). The Church "is held, as a matter of faith, to be unfailingly holy" (CCC 823), because Christ makes her holy, not because her members never sin. She is "at once holy and always in need of purification" (CCC 827).
What Catholics do not teach:
- That Babylon must be some city other than Rome. Most Catholic scholars, with the NABRE notes, identify her with pagan imperial Rome; some read her as unfaithful Jerusalem. The Church has not defined it. Either way, she is the persecutor, not the Church she persecuted.
- That Catholics have never sinned in the name of the faith. The Church has publicly repented of such sins (see below).
- That those who hold this view act in bad faith. Many learned it from people they trust.
The Biblical Case
1. The harlot is a city, and Scripture says which kind
The angel interprets the vision himself: "The woman whom you saw represents the great city that has sovereignty over the kings of the earth" (Revelation 17:18). She is a ruling city, not a church. The NABRE notes identify her plainly: "Babylon, the symbolic name (Rev 17:5) of Rome, is graphically described as 'the great harlot.'" On "seven hills," the note says: "of Rome." In St. John's day, the city that ruled the kings of the earth was imperial Rome.
2. She persecutes the saints
The woman is "drunk on the blood of the holy ones and on the blood of the witnesses to Jesus" (Revelation 17:6). God "has avenged on her the blood of his servants" (Revelation 19:2). When she falls, heaven rejoices: "Rejoice over her, heaven, you holy ones, apostles, and prophets. For God has judged your case against her" (Revelation 18:20). Notice the plaintiffs: the apostles. Pagan Rome put St. Peter and St. Paul to death (see Was Peter Ever in Rome?). The Church of the apostles is the injured party in Revelation 18, not the defendant.
3. "Harlotry" means idolatry, and Rome's was the emperor cult
In the prophets, "prostitute" is God's word for a city that betrays Him or seduces others into idolatry. Isaiah says of Jerusalem: "How she has become a prostitute, the faithful city, so upright!" (Isaiah 1:21). Nahum condemns pagan Nineveh for "the many debaucheries of the prostitute" (Nahum 3:4). Babylon's beast is "covered with blasphemous names" (Revelation 17:3); the NABRE note calls these "divine titles assumed by the Roman emperors" and says "the pagan kings subject to Rome adopted the cult of the emperor."
4. The message had to make sense to St. John's first readers
Revelation is addressed "to the seven churches in Asia" (Revelation 1:4), "for the appointed time is near" (Revelation 1:3). St. John writes from exile on Patmos "because I proclaimed God's word and gave testimony to Jesus" (Revelation 1:9). The book opens with "what must happen soon" (Revelation 1:1) and closes with "Do not seal up the prophetic words of this book, for the appointed time is near" (Revelation 22:10). His readers knew which seven-hilled power was killing Christians. St. Peter used the same code: "The chosen one at Babylon sends you greeting" (1 Peter 5:13). St. Peter was writing from the Church at Rome. He was not calling it the harlot.
5. The Church is the Bride
Revelation sets two women side by side. "His bride has made herself ready. She was allowed to wear a bright, clean linen garment," and "the linen represents the righteous deeds of the holy ones" (Revelation 19:7–8). St. John sees "the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband" (Revelation 21:2).
St. Paul says who that Bride is: "Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her," to "present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing" (Ephesians 5:25–27). And Jesus promised that "the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18). A Church that became the harlot would be a Church the gates of hell had overcome.
Objections Answered
(a) "Seven hills means Rome, and the Catholic Church is in Rome."
At its strongest: Revelation 17:9 says the woman sits on "seven hills," and Rome is the city of seven hills. Many Reformers identified the papacy with Babylon; Luther titled a 1520 treatise On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church. The Vatican is in Rome. The fit seems obvious.
Answer: Most Catholic interpreters agree that Babylon is Rome. But the text says the hills "also represent seven kings: five have already fallen, one still lives" (Revelation 17:9–10), which puts the harlot in St. John's own time, alongside a line of emperors. She "has sovereignty over the kings of the earth" (17:18); the first-century Church had sovereignty over no one and was being hunted. And the Vatican Hill lies across the Tiber, outside the seven hills of the ancient city. Location cannot turn the victim into the persecutor.
(b) "Purple, scarlet, gold, and a cup. Look at Catholic vestments and chalices."
At its strongest: The harlot wears "purple and scarlet" and holds "a gold cup" (Revelation 17:4). Bishops wear purple, cardinals scarlet, and priests raise gold chalices.
Answer: God Himself commanded those colors for Israel's priesthood: "they shall use gold, violet, purple, and scarlet yarn and fine linen" (Exodus 28:5). In Revelation they mark wealth: "fine linen, purple silk, and scarlet cloth" are cargo the merchants sold to Babylon (Revelation 18:12). The point is luxury and idolatry, not liturgy. Matching colors is not exegesis.
(c) "She is drunk on the blood of the saints. Think of the Inquisition."
At its strongest: Catholic authorities did put people to death for heresy, including Protestants. Revelation says "in her was found the blood of prophets and holy ones" (18:24). How can Catholics deny the resemblance?
Answer: These were real sins, and the Church says so. Pope St. John Paul II named "the acquiescence given, especially in certain centuries, to intolerance and even the use of violence in the service of truth" as a chapter to which Catholics "must return with a spirit of repentance" (Tertio Millennio Adveniente 35).
But Revelation is not describing events a thousand years later. The harlot already held "the blood of the witnesses to Jesus" when St. John wrote (17:6), and the apostles are among those avenged (18:20). That was pagan Rome. Protestant authorities also executed religious dissenters in the same era. If such sins made a church the harlot, few churches would escape the label. Scripture's test is different: whose Bride is she, and whom did Christ promise to keep?
(d) "Revelation foresees a future apostate church. Rome fell away later."
At its strongest: Many readers grant that St. John's first audience saw pagan Rome, but argue the prophecy has a later fulfillment: a church that looks Christian yet commits spiritual adultery. Babylon is a "harlot," and only someone once joined to God can betray Him. A Church that began faithful in Rome could become Babylon centuries later.
Answer: Start with the text. The harlot is never called a church; the angel calls her "the great city that has sovereignty over the kings of the earth" (17:18), and her sins are commercial and political: "the kings of the earth had intercourse with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her drive for luxury" (Revelation 18:3). The prophets also used the image for pagan cities that were never God's bride, as Nahum does for Nineveh (3:4).
Next, Revelation already has a woman who stands for God's people, and she is persecuted, not persecuting: "the dragon became angry with the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God's commandments and bear witness to Jesus" (Revelation 12:17). St. Paul likewise gives believers a holy mother, "the Jerusalem above" (Galatians 4:26).
Finally, Christ's promises close the door on a total apostasy: the gates of the netherworld "shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18), and "I am with you always, until the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20). Christians can sin gravely. But a reading that makes the Church Christ founded into His enemy has to set aside both what the angel says the harlot is and what Jesus promised the Church would be.
The Early Church Agrees
The earliest Christian writers honored the Church at Rome as faithful and mourned the martyrs pagan Rome had killed. Those who commented on Revelation read Babylon as the pagan empire.
- Pope St. Clement I (St. Clement of Rome) (Letter to the Corinthians 5–6, c. AD 96) writes as "the church of God which sojourns at Rome." He says St. Peter, "when he had at length suffered martyrdom, departed to the place of glory due to him," and that the apostles were joined by "a great multitude of the elect, who, having through envy endured many indignities and tortures, furnished us with a most excellent example." St. Clement blames "envy" rather than naming the persecutor, but the Church at Rome is mourning its martyrs, not shedding their blood.
- St. Ignatius of Antioch (Letter to the Romans, greeting, c. AD 107), on his way to martyrdom in Rome, greets the church "which also presides in the place of the region of the Romans, worthy of God, worthy of honour."
- St. Irenaeus (Against Heresies 5.30.3, c. AD 180) dates St. John's vision: "For that was seen no very long time since, but almost in our day, towards the end of Domitian's reign." Domitian was a persecuting emperor of pagan Rome.
- Tertullian (Against Marcion 3.13, c. AD 207): "Babylon also in our (St.) John is a figure of the city of Rome, as being like (Babylon) great and proud in royal power, and warring down the saints of God."
- St. Cyprian of Carthage (On the Unity of the Church 6, c. AD 251): "The spouse of Christ cannot be adulterous; she is uncorrupted and pure."
- St. Victorinus of Pettau (Commentary on the Apocalypse, late 3rd century; the text survives in a version later revised by St. Jerome) speaks of "the great overthrow of Babylon, that is, the Roman state," and says the beast's "seven heads were the seven kings of the Romans."
- St. Augustine (City of God 18.2, c. AD 420s) traces the earthly city through "Babylon, like a first Rome," and says "Rome herself is like a second Babylon." He meant the pagan empire, not the Church of Rome he was in communion with.
Not every early writer names the city. St. Hippolytus (On Christ and Antichrist 39–40, early 3rd century) repeats Revelation's "great city" without identifying it. But none of these writers reads the harlot as the Church.
Conclusion
Read on their own terms, Revelation 17 and 18 describe a city that rules the kings of the earth, worships the emperor, grows rich on trade, and kills the apostles. That was pagan Rome. The Church was her victim, and she is the Bride Christ will present "without spot or wrinkle."
If you were taught that the Catholic Church is the whore of Babylon, we do not doubt your sincerity. Weigh the text itself, and then ask: if the Bride of Christ is not the Church that the apostles planted and watered with their blood, who is she?
Come home. The Bride whom Christ loved and promised to keep from the gates of the netherworld is not Babylon but the Catholic Church. Christ did not found many churches. He founded one, on St. Peter and the apostles (Matthew 16:18), and that Church is the Catholic Church. "It is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained" (CCC 816). If you are a baptized Christian, you already share "a certain, although imperfect, communion" with her (CCC 838). Every truth you already hold is a call to the rest of the way. Christ is calling you into the Catholic Church.
Your next step: Come to Mass this Sunday at your local Catholic church. You can find one near you at MassTimes.org. Everyone is welcome; if you're not yet Catholic, pray with us but don't receive Communion yet. When you're ready to become Catholic, call the parish office and ask about OCIA, the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults. They will walk you through every step. Read our guide: How Do I Become Catholic? Not ready yet? Get our free pocket guide below and keep learning.
FAQ
Who is the whore of Babylon in Revelation? A symbol of the city "that has sovereignty over the kings of the earth" (Revelation 17:18). The NABRE notes, and early writers like Tertullian, identify her with pagan imperial Rome.
Does "Babylon" in 1 Peter 5:13 mean the Church is Babylon? No. St. Peter was writing from the city of Rome, and "the chosen one" who sends greetings is the Christian community there.
What does "Depart from her, my people" mean? In Revelation 18:4 God calls His people to separate from Babylon's idolatry and sins. It is a call away from the pagan world system, not a call to leave the Church Christ founded.
Sources
Scripture (NABRE, bible.usccb.org): Exodus 28:5; Isaiah 1:21; Nahum 3:4; Matthew 16:18; Matthew 28:20; Galatians 4:26; Ephesians 5:25–27; 1 Peter 5:13; Revelation 1:1, 3–4, 9; Revelation 12:17; Revelation 17:3–6, 9–10, 18 (with NABRE notes); Revelation 18:3–4, 12, 20, 24; Revelation 19:2, 7–8; Revelation 21:2; Revelation 22:10.
Catechism of the Catholic Church (vatican.va): 796; 816, 823, 827, 838.
Church documents (vatican.va): John Paul II, Tertio Millennio Adveniente 35 (1994).
Church Fathers (newadvent.org): Clement of Rome, Letter to the Corinthians 5–6 (ANF vol. 1); Ignatius, Letter to the Romans (ANF vol. 1); Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.30 (ANF vol. 1); Tertullian, Against Marcion 3.13 (ANF vol. 3); Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church 6 (ANF vol. 5); Hippolytus, On Christ and Antichrist 39–40 (ANF vol. 5); Victorinus, Commentary on the Apocalypse (ANF vol. 7); Augustine, City of God 18.2 (NPNF1 vol. 2).