Did Jesus exist? Italian court to decide

ROME (Reuters) - Forget the U.S. debate over intelligent design versus evolution.

An Italian court is tackling Jesus -- and whether the Roman Catholic Church may be breaking the law by teaching that he existed 2,000 years ago.

The case pits against each other two men in their 70s, who are from the same central Italian town and even went to the same seminary school in their teenage years.

The defendant, Enrico Righi, went on to become a priest writing for the parish newspaper. The plaintiff, Luigi Cascioli, became a vocal atheist who, after years of legal wrangling, is set to get his day in court later this month.

"I started this lawsuit because I wanted to deal the final blow against the Church, the bearer of obscurantism and regression," Cascioli told Reuters.

Cascioli says Righi, and by extension the whole Church, broke two Italian laws. The first is "Abuso di Credulita Popolare" (Abuse of Popular Belief) meant to protect people against being swindled or conned. The second crime, he says, is "Sostituzione di Persona", or impersonation.

"The Church constructed Christ upon the personality of John of Gamala," Cascioli claimed, referring to the 1st century Jew who fought against the Roman army.

A court in Viterbo will hear from Righi, who has yet to be indicted, at a January 27 preliminary hearing meant to determine whether the case has enough merit to go forward.

"In my book, The Fable of Christ, I present proof Jesus did not exist as a historic figure. He must now refute this by showing proof of Christ's existence," Cascioli said.

Speaking to Reuters, Righi, 76, sounded frustrated by the case and baffled as to why Cascioli -- who, like him, came from the town of Bagnoregio -- singled him out in his crusade against the Church.

"We're both from Bagnoregio, both of us. We were in seminary together. Then he took a different path and we didn't see each other anymore," Righi said.

"Since I'm a priest, and I write in the parish newspaper, he is now suing me because I 'trick' the people."

Righi claims there is plenty of evidence to support the existence of Jesus, including historical texts.

He also claims that justice is on his side. The judge presiding over the hearing has tried, repeatedly, to dismiss the case -- prompting appeals from Cascioli.

"Cascioli says he didn't exist. And I said that he did," he said. "The judge will to decide if Christ exists or not."

Even Cascioli admits that the odds are against him, especially in Roman Catholic Italy.

"It would take a miracle to win," he joked.

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What this shows is how far some are willing to go nowadays to see that Jesus is totally driven from culture. Not even secular scholars of repute suggest that Jesus didn't live and do the non-miraculous things the Bible says He did (the miraculous things are doubted by the more liberal Christians who seek to remove that which they cannot reason through or fully understand....but then it wouldn't be a miracle now would it?). But while Cascioli understands it would take "a miracle" to win, he is undaunted. He will bring the case anyway.

The second thing that stands out to me is that he is accusing the priest of breaking the law because he teaches truth that runs contrary to "popular belief". Understand Christians, one day this will be all it takes to undo our freedom to discuss Jesus in the open. The popular belief will dicate that there is no need for Jesus, and to bring Him up will constitute breaking the law and be punishable by fines, jail, or worse. No, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I'm not naive enough to believe that absolute NO conspiracies take place...just the opposite, and I feel that the ones which do are generally serious. The most serious of these is the war agains Christianity, which is definitely underway. Sin has been around since Eden, but it is seeking to hold all power and control possible until The Lord defeats it once and for all. Satan is not small minded, so we should not expect less.

It's a sad article and shows a very sad point of view for Cascioli's life. Any thoughts?

Athosxc