“Fascination with the evil one” is not what should be fostered, Lampert told CNA. Instead, society should be promoting that the human person is created in the image and likeness of God and has the innate desire for God, he said.
Owens, the Converse post said, had “emerged from the glam-rock and grunge underground to become one of fashion’s essential iconoclasts,” noting that his “DRKSHDW diffusion line, launched in 2005, blends punk edge with couture-like sophistication.”
In a 2019 interview with Nathan Heller for Vogue Magazine, Owens revealed he was once a Catholic who then “fell off.”
During the interview at Owen’s 2019 residence in Paris, he and Heller visited the nearby historic Sainte-Clotilde Basilica church. Owens said that he enjoyed the “space” of the church being part of his life. “When I was growing up, religion was my first example of the connection between exoticism and the morality of behavior. There was glamour, but there was also a sense of higher purpose,” Owens said.
Owens had previously visited the church with his parents to discuss “serious matters,” Heller wrote.
Heller reported that in 2018 Owens considered having a fashion show in the basilica. Owens did not find the idea irreverent, “because it had become his church-a deeply personal, sacred place- and he felt duly protective of it.”
Converse is a subsidiary of its parent company, Nike Inc. Earlier this year, famous rapper Lil Nas X began selling Nike-branded “Satan Shoes” that supposedly contained one drop of human blood, a pentagram, and had “Luke 10:18” stitched on them. The shoes cost $1,018 per pair and sold out in less than one minute. The verse of Luke 10:18 states, “Jesus said, ‘I have observed Satan fall like lightning from the sky.’”
The New York Times reported in April that the shoe line was recalled because Nike did not authorize sale of its design. After Nike sued the subsidiary company, MSCHF, the shoes became available for return.
The Times reported that Nike said it had nothing to do with the shoe line. Nike announced the release of Rick Owens’ pentagram shoes on its website in July.
Joseph Bukuras is a journalist at the Catholic News Agency. Joe has prior experience working in state and federal government, in non-profits, and Catholic education. He has contributed to an array of publications and his reporting has been cited by leading news sources, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the Catholic University of America. He is based out of the Boston area.