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From hereon in my words are italicized.

Obelisk.. That big stone structure in the middle of St. Peter’s square. It’s on the news a lot these days. The obelisks of Rome are a favorite target of the more vicious anti-Catholic hate cults. I am referring to the hate cults that in no way represent mainstream Protestantism. Most Protestants I have met in my life are good Christians who love God and others, and do not fall into the fear-based paranoid minority.

The pagans used obelisks, so that proves Catholicism must be pagan. So the theory goes.
The following is from a book written by a non-Catholic Egyptologist. Notice there is no explanation as to why this particular obelisk has no inscriptions on it. There are also Egyptian obelisks in many cities in the world, including Washington D.C. The following is from a secular book.

The Obelisk in the Piazza di San Pietro

The obelisks of the Piazza San Pietro, Piazza dell’ Esuilino, and the Piazza del Quirinale are all uninscribed. Their dates, provenances, and the reasons they were left uninscribed are not known…Neither Flinders Petrie, nor any other excavator working in the ruins of Heliopolis, has ever found an obelisk, or even a small fragment of an obelisk, that was uninscribed. The sovereigns of ancient Egypt were ever eager to decorate monuments with their own names and with phrases proclaiming their own glory, no matter what the size of the monument. The only undecorated obelisks in Egypt were unfinished ones abandoned in their quarries, and in fact one of these decoration was already in progress. More probably, the uninscribed obelisks were quarried in Egypt by the Roman emperors expressly to be taken to Rome, although it is possible that they were left incomplete because of the untimely death of the pharaoh.

The Obelisk in the Piazza di San Pietro is important chiefly by its surroundings.. It is made of red granite and stands 25.37 meters high. It was erected in the Julian Forum in Alexandria by order of Augustus and remained their until 37 A.D. when the Emperor Caligula ordered the forum demolished and the obelisk transferred to Rome. It was then erected in the Vatican Circus, and there it remained until its removal to the square before the Basilica of St. Peter (1586). Legend (the author is writing as an archeologist when he says ‘legend’, not as an early church historian) has it that in the Vatican Circus innumerable Christians, including St. Peter and that the reason this obelisk was not later overturned as were all the others in Rome was that was looked upon as the witness to the martyrdom of St. Peter.

Pope Sixtus V appointed engineer Domenico Fontana to move the obelisk from the Vatican Circus…

April 28, 1586, Fontana and his men attended Mass at 2:AM, and later offered public prayers for the success of this feat….

Dedication ceremonies, Mass, and a procession with the entire papal court went to the obelisk More prayers, were offered and the obelisk was purified, and surmounted with a cross.

Former Chief Inspector of Antiquities, is an Egyptian archeologist who has published several books on Egyptology, as well as many articles in many journals.
Obelisks of the World, by Labib Habachi, Scribner’s Sons, 1974, page 74-75

On the top of this Christianized pagan symbol, is a cross. Inside this cross, is a relic of the true cross. The obelisk at the Vatican stood in the presence of hundreds of the earliest Christian martyrs. The obelisk is a monument to them, not to the beliefs of its makers who killed them.. To accuse Catholicism of paganism because of a monument to our roots is an insult to the deaths of the martyrs who refused to pay homage to Roman gods.

Sure, the obelisk at the Vatican has a lot to do with Roman paganism. It’s defeat: by the blood of the martyrs and the spreading of the Gospel.

The cross is a symbol of our faith. Contrary to the hate cultists and their insane propaganda to discredit the Catholic Church, the cross is not a pagan idol.
http://www.masters-table.org/pagan/oblis.htm

Is Catholicism Pagan?
http://www.catholic.com/library/Is_C...cism_Pagan.asp

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The catacombs are underground tunnels that were forged out of soft rock. They are long, marrow winding corridors. The dead were buried in the walls on either side. From time to time, going through these corridors, one comes to a wider space like a room. In these rooms the Christians would gather for the sacrifice of the Mass so as to worship free from the pagan’s persecutions.

Burial in the catacombs stopped when the barbarian plundered Rome. The popes removed the relics of the saints and martyrs from the catacombs. The catacombs, once abandoned, were gradually forgotten and not discovered again until the end of the sixteenth century. Most famous of the catacombs is that of St. Callistus, where many of the popes were buried after they were martyred for the faith.

HOW THE CATACOMBS BEAR WITNESS TO THE TRUE CATHOLIC FAITH TODAY

An authentic Catholic catechism, containing to true Catholic teachings, could be composed from the pictures and inscriptions on the tombs and walls of ancient catacombs of the first three centuries. Pictures, medals, and inscriptions in the catacombs identify the faith of the early Christians with the Catholic faith.

The catacombs prove that the first Christians believed that Jesus Christ is true God and true Man. They also believed in the Real Presence of Jesus in the holy Eucharist, the divine institution of the papacy, the dignity of the mother of God, the intercession of the saints, purgatory, prayers for the deceased.

The emblem of the fish, ichthys, was frequently used in the catacombs. It is a symbol of the Lord Jesus, for the Greek word ichthys means “fish” and its letters are the initials for “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior.” When Christians spoke of “receiving the fish”, they meant to receive Jesus in Holy communion.

Frequently, pictures of our Savior in the catacombs reveal him as the Good Shepherd., carrying the lost sheep on his shoulders. This is the ancient biblical form which reveals the same message as our modern devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. A number of people are sitting around a table on which is bread and fish.

Death and resurrection were often in the minds of the early Christians, as indicated by the pictures of Noah and the ark, Jonah and the whale, Daniel in the lions’ den, and the raising of Lazarus. Their faith in resurrection and eternal life gave them courage in facing death under persecution. There is also the famous account of Tarsicius being martyred a he took the holy Eucharist, the bread of life, to Christian prisoners.

The eucharistic sacrifice of the Mass was offered in the catacombs on the altars under which rested the bodies of martyrs. Catholic altars even today have “altar stones” in which the relics of saints and martyrs were placed by bishops when they consecrated the altar stones.

A Catechism of the Catholic Church, by Robert J. Fox. Copyright© Franciscan Herald Press, pgs. 20, 21

Nihil Obstat:
Rev. James M. Joyce
Censor Liborum

Imprimatur:
Most Rev. Paul V. Dudley
August 29, 1979

ON-LINE TOUR OF THE ROMAN CATACOMBS
http://www.catacombe.roma.it/index.html