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John Beardsly on his blog wrote,

The Roman Catholic Church, in its pagan form, unofficially came into being in 312 A.D., at the time of the so-called “miraculous conversion” to Christianity of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Although Christianity was not made the official religion of the Roman Empire until the edicts of Theodosius I in 380 and 381 A.D., Constantine, from 312 A.D. until his death in 337, was engaged in the process of simultaneously building pagan temples and Christian churches, and was slowly turning over the reigns of his pagan priesthood to the Bishop of Rome.

Catholic Idols

Catholics, admitting that the Catholic church did in fact adopted, renamed and redesigned pagan practices, explain this as such:

The truth of history is the fact that the Church replaced these pagan things with Christian ones. The Church did not in corporate such pagan practices, but replaced the same with Christian ones.

Replacement is different from adoption, or from adaptation, or from immersion. The former totally abolishes every thing that is before it.

Does the Church have the right to replace pagan festivals, things, and practices with Christian ones?

We must answer in the affirmative, for the God of Christianity is God not only of Christians, but of the whole world and whole humanity, be they Christians, pagan, atheists, or not.

As such, His Church here on earth has the divine ordination, authority, power, and jurisdiction to replace those pagan festivals, things, and practices with Christian ones.

Some Catholic teachings copied from pagan practices

• Pagan Worship of Mary as Queen of Heaven

Prayer to Mary, Queen of Heaven

Mary Queen of Heaven

Queen of heaven, rejoice. Alleluia. The Son whom you were privileged to bear, Alleluia, has risen as he said, Alleluia. Pray to God for us, Alleluia. Rejoice and be glad, Virgin Mary, Alleluia. For the Lord has truly risen, Alleluia.

O God, it was by the Resurrection of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that you brought joy to the world. Grant that through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, his Mother, we may attain the joy of eternal life. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Catholic Virgin Mary was copied from pagan Ashtoreth, Queen of Heaven

Encyclopedia Britannica:
“Through her identification with the Greek Aphrodite and the Roman Venus, Inanna-Ishtar, the queen of heaven, still survives in Roman Catholic iconography – e.g., as the Virgin Mary standing on the moon.”

Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1894:
“Queen of Heaven with the ancient Phoenicians, was Astarte; Greeks, Hera; Romans, Juno; Trivia, Hecate, Diana, the Egyptian Isis, etc., were all so called; but with the Roman Catholics it is the Virgin Mary.”

• The head of the church

Part of the apostasy brought about by the adoption of pagan practices was the blatant disregard of the importance of Christ.

Question: Who is the head of Church of Christ?

Catholic answer: the Pope. The term “Pope” signifies the *HEAD* Bishop of the Catholic Church. Catholics consider Peter the first Bishop of the Catholic Church. The pope also uses the title Vicar(Instead) of Christ.

What does the bible say: Col 1:18 Christ is the head of the church, which is his body

ARCHBISHOP JEAN-LOUIS TAURAN, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue admitted that the head of the catholic church is the pope. He said [quote]“It is interesting to note that the personal recognition granted to the Pope (who in this period was still a temporal sovereign) was prompted by the fact that he was first and foremost the Spiritual Head of the Catholic Church”[/quote]

Catholic claim the Pope is the Vicar of Christ, or more simply Christ here on earth. My question is, if this “Christ” on earth, the Pople, teaches things that are different from the teachings of the real Christ, wouldn’t that make the Pope the anti-Christ?

• Pagan Roman Catholic Church celebrates Easter

Ester, a Catholic festival comes from Eastre, the Anglo-Saxon name of a Teutonic goddess of spring and fertility, to whom was dedicated a month corresponding to April. Her festival was celebrated on the day of the vernal equinox; traditions associated with the festival survive in the Easter rabbit, a symbol of fertility, and in colored easter eggs, originally painted with bright colors to represent the sunlight of spring, and used in Easter-egg rolling contests or given as gifts.

Easter, celebrated by the ancient Saxons for the return of spring with an uproarious festival commemorating their goddess of offspring and of springtime.

Constantine, a pagan emperor, issued the Easter Rule which states that Easter shall be celebrated on the first Sunday that occurs after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox.

• Holloween

Jack o-Lantern

Britannica says “Hallowe’en long antedates Christianity. History shows that the main celebrations of Hallowe’en were purely Druidical [ancient Britain]. The Druids believed in the calling together of certain wicked souls on Hallowe’en by Saman, lord of death. Upon the Druidic ceremonies were grafted some of the characteristics of the Roman festival in honor of Pomona [pagan Italian goddess of fruits and gardens] held about November 1st, in which nuts and apples, representing the winter store of fruits, played an important part.

Catholic.org says “It should be noted that Halloween is a Catholic holiday. Pope Gregory IV in 835 made it the universal practice in the Roman Catholic Church to celebrate All Saints’ Day on Nov. 1. All Souls’ Day follows the next day as the commemoration of all of the faithful who have departed.”

• Flagellation – Pagan ritual practiced by Catholics

Flagellation (usually with whips) has been associated with religious fervor from pagan times. In ancient Egypt devotees of the goddess Isis scourged themselves at an annual festival. According to Pausanias, women were flogged in the temple of Dionysus. Plutarch states that the priests of Cybele were flogged in the temple of the goddess.

In the Catholic religion, flagellation found many rationalizations. It was used as an official punishment for priests and monks, a self-inflicted penance, and a dramatization of the sufferings of Christ. There was an epidemic of flagellant sects in Europe during the tenth and fourteenth centuries, associated with perceived penance and supposed love of Christ, and the Catholic authorities took extreme measures to suppress what they considered a morbid enthusiasm for the act. In Latin American countries, flagellation still occurs at religious processions of penitentes. In the Philippines, they are called penitensias.

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