Atheist's suit challenges priest, calls Jesus a fable

Atheist's suit challenges priest, calls Jesus a fable - January 22, 2006

BY NICOLE WINFIELD

ROME -- Lawyers for a small-town parish priest have been ordered to appear in court this week after the Roman Catholic cleric was accused of unlawfully asserting what many people take for granted: that Jesus Christ existed.

The Rev. Enrico Righi was named in a 2002 complaint filed by Luigi Cascioli after Righi wrote in a parish bulletin that Jesus did indeed exist and that he was born of a couple named Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth.

Says Gospels are wrong

Cascioli, an atheist, says Righi violated two Italian laws: so-called abuse of popular belief, in which someone deceives people, and impersonation, in which someone gains by attributing a false name to someone. Cascioli says that for 2,000 years, the Roman Catholic Church has been deceiving people by furthering the fable that Christ existed and he says it has been gaining financially by impersonating as Christ someone named John of Gamala, the son of Judas from Gamala.

He asserts that the Gospels -- the most frequently cited testimony of Jesus' existence -- are inconsistent, full of errors and biased, and that other written evidence is scant.

Italian prosecutors initially tried to have the case dismissed, saying no crime could be verified.

But Cascioli challenged them, and Judge Gaetano Mautone set a hearing for Friday in Viterbo, north of Rome, to discuss preliminary motions in Cascioli's bid to have court-appointed experts review the data and determine if Jesus really did exist.

Cascioli, 72, said he decided to pursue the case against Righi, a priest in the village of Bagnoregio, because the cleric had written in the parish bulletin that Jesus existed.

'No real doubt'

Asked why he went after Righi and not any number of bishops, cardinals or even the pope who have asserted the same thing, Cascioli said it didn't matter who he named.

''When one demonstrates that Christ didn't exist, attacking a simple priest is the same thing as attacking a bishop or cardinal.''

Righi declined to be interviewed on the advice of his lawyers. But in a recent issue of his parish bulletin he argues that the existence of Christ is ''unmistakable'' because of the substantial historical evidence -- both pagan and religious -- testifying that he indeed lived.

R. Scott Appleby, a professor of church history at the University of Notre Dame, concurs. There's ''no real doubt'' Jesus existed, he said.

''But what Jesus of Nazareth did and what he means is a different question,'' Appleby said. ''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.''

Hoping for a miracle

Cascioli says he recognizes that his case has a slim chance of succeeding in overwhelmingly Catholic Italy, but not because his argument is lacking.

''We aren't optimistic -- unless the Madonna makes a miracle, but I don't think that will happen,'' he joked.

Copyright by the AP