Court Asks Priest To Prove Jesus Existed

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Prove Christ exists, judge orders priest
From Richard Owen in Rome



ROME Jan 20, 2006 — Lawyers for a small-town parish priest have been ordered to appear in court next 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.

Cascioli, a lifelong atheist, claims that Righi violated two Italian laws by making the assertion: so-called "abuse of popular belief" in which someone fraudulently deceives people; and "impersonation" in which someone gains by attributing a false name to someone.


Luigi Cascioli holds his book titled "The Fable of Christ" in his home in Roccalvecce, Italy, in his home in Roccalvecce, near Viterbo, central Italy, Wednesday Jan. 18, 2006. Lawyers for Rev. Enrico Righi, a small-town parish priest, have been ordered to appear in court next week after the Roman Catholic cleric was accused of unlawfully asserting what many people take for granted: that Jesus Christ existed. Cascioli, a lifelong atheist, claims that Righi violated two Italian laws by making the assertion: so-called "abuse of popular belief" in which someone fraudulently deceives people; and "impersonation" in which someone gains by attributing a false name to someone. (AP Photo/Walter Selva)


Cascioli says that for 2,000 years the Roman Catholic Church has been deceiving people by furthering the fable that Christ existed, and says the church has been gaining financially by impersonating as Christ someone by the name of John of Gamala, the son of Judas from Gamala.

He also asserts that the Gospels the most frequently cited testimony of Jesus' existence are inconsistent, full of errors and biased, and that other written evidence from the time is scant and doesn't hold up to scholarly analysis.

Prosecutors, who in Italy are obliged to investigate such complaints, 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 next Friday in Viterbo, north of Rome, to discuss preliminary motions in Cascioli's bid to have the court appoint technical experts to review the historical data and determine if Jesus really did exist.

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

Asked why he went after Righi a schoolmate when he and Cascioli were boys and not any number of bishops, cardinals or even the pope who have asserted the very same thing, Cascioli said it didn't really matter whom 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.

Cascioli is quick to stress that he has no problem with Christians freely professing their faith. Rather, he says in his complaint, he 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."

Righi, who has been a priest for 50 years, declined to be interviewed on the advice of his lawyers before the pending court date. But he set out his rebuke of Cascioli in a recent issue of his parish bulletin "Risveglio," or "Awaken," and said by telephone that the article encapsulated his position.

Righi argues that the existence of Christ is "unmistakable" because of the substantial historical evidence both pagan and religious testifying that he indeed lived.

"Cascioli maintains that Christ never existed. If he doesn't see the sun at midday, he can't denounce me just because I do. He should denounce all believers!" Righi wrote.

He cited many known observers, including non-Christian ones, who have written about the existence of Jesus, including the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, considered by scholars to be the most important non-Christian source on Christ's existence.

A passage of Josephus' "Jewish Antiquities," completed in A.D. 93, cites the execution in A.D. 62 of "the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ, James by name."

Righi also cited Pliny the Younger, who in the early second century described a policy of executing Christians who refused to curse Christ, and Tacitus, another writer of the same time who wrote that Jesus was executed by the sentence of Pontius Pilate.

"You would have to give lie to each, one by one, to cancel the Christ man that they speak of," Righi wrote.

R. Scott Appleby, a professor of church history at the University of Notre Dame, concurs. There's "no real doubt" that 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."

Cascioli says he fully 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.

Cascioli says he is merely going through the necessary legal steps in Italy so he can ultimately take the matter to the European Court of Human Rights, where he intends to pursue the case against the church for "religious racism."

"I was born against Christ and God," he said. "I'm doing it (the complaint) now because I should do it before I die."

Prove Christ exists, judge orders priest

From Richard Owen in Rome


Yesterday Gaetano Mautone, a judge in Viterbo, set a preliminary hearing for the end of this month and ordered Father Righi to appear. The judge had earlier refused to take up the case, but was overruled last month by the Court of Appeal, which agreed that Signor Cascioli had a reasonable case for his accusation that Father Righi was “abusing popular credulity”.

Signor Cascioli’s contention — echoed in numerous atheist books and internet sites — is that there was no reliable evidence that Jesus lived and died in 1st-century Palestine apart from the Gospel accounts, which Christians took on faith. There is therefore no basis for Christianity, he claims.

Signor Cascioli’s one-man campaign came to a head at a court hearing last April when he lodged his accusations of “abuse of popular credulity” and “impersonation”, both offences under the Italian penal code. He argued that all claims for the existence of Jesus from sources other than the Bible stem from authors who lived “after the time of the hypothetical Jesus” and were therefore not reliable witnesses.

Signor Cascioli maintains that early Christian writers confused Jesus with John of Gamala, an anti-Roman Jewish insurgent in 1st-century Palestine. Church authorities were therefore guilty of “substitution of persons”.

The Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius mention a “Christus” or “Chrestus”, but were writing “well after the life of the purported Jesus” and were relying on hearsay.


Signor Cascioli said that the Gospels themselves were full of inconsistencies and did not agree on the names of the 12 apostles. He said that he would withdraw his legal action if Father Righi came up with irrefutable proof of Christ’s existence by the end of the month.

The Vatican has so far declined to comment.



THE EVIDENCE
# The Gospels say that Jesus was born to the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem, grew up in Nazareth, preached and performed miracles in Galilee and died on the Cross in Jerusalem

# In his Antiquities of the Jews at the end of the 1st century, Josephus, the Jewish historian, refers to Jesus as “a wise man, a doer of wonderful works” who “drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles”

# Muslims believe Jesus was a great prophet. Many Jewish theologians regard Jesus as an itinerant rabbi who popularised many of the beliefs of liberal Jews. Neither Muslims nor Jews believe he was the Messiah and Son of God

# Tacitus, the Roman historian who lived from 55 to 120, mentions “Christus” in his Annals. In about 120 Suetonius, author of The Lives of the Caesars, says: “Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, Emperor Claudius expelled them from Rome.”

Other links:
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNew...403634-ap.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,182341,00.html

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe...ly.jesus.reut/

Sources: ABCnews, The Times, FOXNews, CNN, CNEWS