Updated: 8:32 a.m. ET Jan. 27, 2006
VITERBO, Italy - An Italian judge heard arguments Friday on whether a small-town parish priest should stand trial for asserting that Jesus Christ existed.
The priest’s atheist accuser, Luigi Cascioli, says the Roman Catholic Church has been deceiving people for 2,000 years with a fable that Christ existed, and that the Rev. Enrico Righi violated two Italian laws by reasserting the claim.
Lawyers for Righi and Cascioli, old schoolmates, made their arguments in a brief, closed-door hearing before Judge Gaetano Mautone in Viterbo, north of Rome. They said they expected the judge to decide quickly.
Cascioli filed a criminal complaint in 2002 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 claims that Righi’s assertion constituted two crimes under Italian law: so-called “abuse of popular belief,” in which someone fraudulently deceives people; and “impersonation,” in which someone gains by attributing a false name to a person.
Church committing fraud?
“The point is not to establish whether Jesus existed or not, but if there is a question of possible fraud,” Cascioli’s attorney, Mauro Fonzo, told reporters before the hearing.
Cascioli 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 has said he has little hope of the case succeeding in overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Italy, but that he is merely going through the necessary legal steps to reach the European Court of Human Rights, where he intends to accuse the church of what he calls “religious racism.”
Righi, 76, has stressed substantial historical evidence — both Christian and non-Christian — of Jesus’ existence.
“Don Righi is innocent because he said and wrote what he has the duty to say and write,” Righi’s attorney, Severo Bruno, told reporters.
He said he told Mautone during the hearing that Righi was not asserting a historical fact when he wrote of Jesus’ existence, but rather “an expression of theological principles.”
“When Don Righi spoke about Christ’s humanity ... he was affirming that he needs to be considered as a man. What his name is, where he comes from or who his parents are is secondary,” he said.
Fonza said he countered that there have long been questions of Christ’s existence and that the matter warranted discussion in the court.
“When somebody states a wrong fact, abusing the ignorance of people, and gains from that, that is one of the gravest crimes,” Cascioli told reporters.
Righi’s brother, Luigi Righi, attended the hearing and said his brother was “serene but bitter.”
Link_________________________________________________________________________
By the way...the image in the "Link" is the accuser, when you move your mouse over the image. I always thought that looking up can only get better, but I find thats not true in every case when I thought the picture was Rev. Enrico Righi.
How many times have you seen this verse used on the Roman Catholic Church for changing the Sabbath day or the Graven Images of the Ten Commandments?Daniel 7:25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
Cascioli filed a criminal complaint in 2002 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.
JESUS IS REALRevelation 4:8 And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, LORD God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.
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