Italian Priest Faces Hearing This Week for Asserting Existence of Jesus Christ
A parish priest in Italy will face a legal hearing this week after an atheist man accused him of unlawfully asserting that Jesus Christ existed.
A small-town parish priest in Italy will face a legal hearing this week after an atheist man accused him of unlawfully asserting that Jesus Christ existed.
Fr. Enrico Righi and his lawyers will appear in court this Friday because of a September 2002 complaint filed by Luigi Cascioli. Cascioli, a lifelong atheist, filed the complaint after Righi wrote in a parish bulletin that Jesus Christ was a historical figure born in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago, according to reports.
Cascioli, 74, based his complaint on two Italian laws that he asserts Righi violated: the “abuse of popular belief” – in which someone fraudulently deceives people, and “impersonation” – where someone benefits by assigning a false name to someone, according to AP.
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The lifelong atheist says he has no problem with Christians freely professing their faith but wants to "denounce the abuse that the Catholic Church commits by availing itself of its prestige in order to inculcate – as if being real and historical – facts that are really just inventions," AP reported.
The plaintiff accused the Roman Catholic Church of deceiving people for 2,000 years that Jesus existed, and says the church has profit financially by “impersonating” as Christ someone by the name of John of Gamala, who was the son of Judas from Gamala.
In addition, Cascioli says the Gospels are inconsistent, full of errors, biased and cannot hold up to scholarly analysis.
Italian prosecutors had initially tried to get the case dismissed, but Cascioli was persistent and challenged them.
The hearing this week will discuss preliminary motions in Cascioli’s proposal to have the court appoint technical experts to review the historical data and determine if Jesus really did exist.
Cascioli, who was schoolmates with Righi when he was young, says it did not matter who he named in his complaint.
"When one demonstrates that Christ didn't exist, attacking a simple priest is the same thing as attacking a bishop or cardinal," Cascioli said according to AP.
Righi argues that the existence of Jesus is “unmistakable” and there is substantial historical evidence – both pagan and religious – to support the Church’s claim.
In his parish bulletin, “Awaken,” Righi wrote in response to Cascioli’s attack, "You would have to give lie to each, one by one, to cancel the Christ man that they speak of.”
R. Scott Appleby, a professor of church history at the University of Notre Dame, agrees with Righi and said there is “no real doubt" that Jesus existed.
"But what Jesus of Nazareth did and what he means is a different question," Appleby said to AP. "But on the question of the existence, there is more evidence of the existence of Jesus of Nazareth than there would be for many other historical people who actually existed. Not only did Jesus actually exist, but he actually had some kind of prominence to be mentioned in two or three chronicles."
Cascioli says that his ultimate goal is to take the issue to the European Court of Human Rights and the complaint in Italy is a mere necessary legal step in the process.
"I was born against Christ and God," he said. "I'm doing it (the complaint) now because I should do it before I die."
"I started this lawsuit because I wanted to deal the final blow against the Church," he said according to The Sydney Morning Herald.
