Some skeptics claim that the early Christian community was heavily influenced by the surrounding pagan culture of the Roman Empire—that the entire Christian system of belief was cobbled together by cherry-picking teachings from the “competing religions” of the time. A variant of this claim popular among non-Catholic Christians is that the Church started by Jesus Christ remained pure at first, but then slowly adopted pagan beliefs, especially during and after the time of the Emperor Constantine in the early fourth century.
 
These claims could not be further from the truth. The predominant pagan belief in the Roman Empire ran contrary to the Christian message, and this is evidenced by both the writings of the early Christians demonstrating an almost contemptuous view of pagan...

While looking through some news feeds recently, I found this lede:

Modern Catholic churches resemble museums and are built more with the aim of winning design awards than worshiping God, the Vatican has said.

Well, that certainly grabbed my attention. "The Vatican" said? Perhaps the Vatican was about to declare an official moratorium on the construction of ugly, ultra-modernist Catholic churches! That would make my day. I read on. Nope. No moratorium. But the news was still good. 

According to the article, Mr. Antonio Paolucci, the director of the Vatican...