Contact: Robert Ritchie, 717-309-1990, reritchie@gmail.com

NEW YORK, June 6, 2018 /Christian Newswire/ -- Lay Catholics from eleven states will attend a Reparation Crusade against the heavily sacrilegious exhibit called "Heavenly Bodies: The Catholic Imagination and Fashion" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) on Saturday, June 9th.
 
The exhibit includes a sexual bondage mask covered in Rosary beads, plus revealing women's clothes modeled after clerical vestments with images of Catholic saints and with an androgynous look. One of the dresses featured a short black skirt with a sleeveless top and an icon of Our Lady on the front and back. Another dress, with a mostly transparent top, shows a naked Adam and Eve on its lower part.

The Reparation Crusade is headed by the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) and its America Needs Fatima campaign.

Mr. Michael Drake, TFP Catholic Outreach Director, who is leading the event, said: "The exhibit is a mockery of Christ, His Church and Our Blessed Mother. As Catholics, we cannot stand by idle as Our Lord is mocked and spat upon. We must make reparation like those few did at Christ's Crucifixion."

He added: "Besides the sacrilegious use of sacred images, these so-called 'vestments' are clearly meant to be suggestive. This is a direct contradiction to the Church's stance on purity and modesty."

The choice of theme and the exhibit's design was Andrew Bolton's, the Costume Institute's Curator in Charge. Raised a Catholic, he lives with his homosexual partner Thom Browne. It was Bolton who, over two years of negotiations and numerous trips to Rome, obtained the loan of the Vatican vestments and objects.

His efforts received support from Archbishop Georg Gänswein, Prefect of the Prefecture of the Papal Household, Curia Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture, as well as the First Section of the Vatican's Office of the Secretariat of State. During the negotiations, Bolton also consulted with the notorious Fr. James Martin, S.J., the "Rainbow Jesuit."

Many Catholics were disappointed and puzzled that the Vatican lent vestments to the exhibit and that Cardinal Dolan, the archbishop of New York, joined the Met Gala to inaugurate the exhibit next to scantily-clad celebrities known for their impure lifestyles.

"Heavenly Bodies: The Catholic Imagination and Fashion" exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) was widely reported on by international Catholic and secular media outlets in print and online, which has sparked a crusade of outrage and opposition from American Catholics, as well as from Catholics around the world. The exhibit remains at the MET until October 8th.

The Reparation Crusade is set for Saturday, June 9th at 12 Noon (the Catholic memorial of the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary) in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, 1000 5th Avenue in New York City.

For more information, please call Robert Ritchie at 717-309-1990, or write to reritchie@gmail.com.