Macy's decked out the pope's Philadelphia digs with $250,000 worth of stuff

Getting on the pope's good side can never hurt, and Macy's has gone to great lengths to ensure that the pontiff will be cozy when he arrives at the St. Charles Borromeo Seminary on Saturday for his final night on American soil.

Macy's spent almost an entire month delivering and assembling a quarter of a million dollars worth of beds and home decor items for the seminary, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports, including eco-friendly memory foam mattresses and model beds for Pope Francis and his 59-person crew. The sheets for the beds are 350 thread count; the plates the pope will eat off of are trimmed in 34-karat gold. Other donated Macy's goods included curtains, chairs, and dining tables. The Inquirer adds that Macy's handed off 40 sets of its vintage Republic china just for the occasion (a five-piece setting runs $258), and Lenox included a set with the Vatican seal for the Pope to take back home with him.

But what to do with the rest of the stuff once the pope makes his exit? Flemington Department Store, which makes the carpet for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's star-studded Met Gala, offered up a special gold carpet for the pope's Sunday Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul. Afterward, they've decided to cut up the rug and distribute the pieces on a first-come, first-served basis (you can email tedcarpet@gmail.com to get yours).

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

"There are some things that you just don't charge people for," one of Flemington's owners, Ted Resnick, told The Inquirer. "This is one of them."