Roman Catholic Church leadership admit their religion based on paganism
"It has often been charged... that Catholicism is overlaid with many pagan incrustations. Catholicism is ready to accept that accusation - and even to make it her boast... the great god Pan is not really dead, he is baptized" -The Story of Catholicism p 37
"It is interesting to note how often our Church has availed herself of practices which were in common use among pagans...Thus it is true, in a certain sense, that some Catholic rites and ceremonies are a reproduction of those of pagan creeds...." (The Externals of the Catholic Church, Her Government, Ceremonies, Festivals, Sacramentals and Devotions, by John F. Sullivan, p 156, published by P.J. Kennedy, NY, 1942)
Cardinal Newman admits in his book that; the "The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; incense, lamps, and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness; holy water; asylums; holydays and seasons, use of calendars, processions, blessings on the fields; sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images at a later date, perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison, are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church." -An Essay on The Development of the Christian Doctrine John Henry "Cardinal Newman" p.359
The penetration of the religion of Babylon became so general and well known that Rome was called the "New Babylon." -Faith of our fathers 1917 ed. Cardinal Gibbons, p. 106
"In order to attach to Christianity great attraction in the eyes of the nobility, the priests adopted the outer garments and adornments which were used in pagan cults." -Life of Constantine, Eusabius, cited in Altai-Nimalaya, p. 94
"The Church did everything it could to stamp out such 'pagan' rites, but had to capitulate and allow the rites to continue with only the name of the local deity changed to some Christian saint's name." -Religious Tradition and Myth. Dr. Edwin Goodenough, Professor of Religion, Harvard University. p. 56, 57