Posted on 01/22/2006 3:10:37 PM PST by Cornpone
Rome - 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 Reverend 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.
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.
Gospels 'full of errors'
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.
Cascioli is quick to stress that he has no problem with Christians freely professing their faith.
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.
Born 'against Christ'
Cascioli says he fully recognises 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."
I figured we were in agreement about much ado about what athiests believe to be nothing! But we're not in agreement about who Jesus is and I hope that you find him some day. He gives life meaning.
But I'm glad we're in agreement about some things!
Let's go half-way: they cannot stand it because it is truth.
Reminiscent of C.S. Lewis' _Mere Christianity_.
I haven't read it (though I have heard some quotations from it), so I'll take your word for it and take it as a compliment.
Mojave:
He frightens them.
Neither Jesus or Christians "frighten" non-believers. -- Fanatics are frightening.
I don't see how that's going half-way, but that's correct.
I haven't read it (though I have heard some quotations from it), so I'll take your word for it and take it as a compliment.
Yes, well done.
Precisely. Jesus seems like he would have been a decent enough fellow.
But some of his worshippers? Yikes.
But some of his worshippers? Yikes.
May I remind you, that the same man who said "But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you," Matthew 5:44 also drove money changers out of the temple with a whip and said "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." Matthew 10:34.
While I certainly grant you that there are Christians who go overboard and do not display the love of Christ, I wish more people understood one thing: Christ was not a kumbaia, let's all get along, soft spoken weakling (as he has often been portrayed), but rather a strong and bold speaker who inspired divisions amongst people as he does to this day and will to the end of time.
Make Cascioli prove that "John of Gamala" existed.
Many have been against Christ. They've all been wrong.
No one speaks more of God than atheist.
One Solitary Life
Here was a man.
A man who was born in a small village; the son of a peasant woman. He grew up in another small village. Until he reached the age of thirty he worked as a carpenter.
Then for three years, he was a traveling minister. But he never traveled more than two hundred miles from where he was born. And where he did go he usually walked.
He never held political office, he never wrote a book, he never bought a home, he never had a family, he never went to college, and he never set foot inside a big city but yes, here was a man.
Though he never did one on the things that you'd usually associate with greatness here was a man he had no credentials but himself. He had nothing to do with this world except through the divine purpose that brought him to this world.
And while he was still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. Most of his friends ran away; one of them denied him, one of them betrayed him and turned him over to his enemies.
Then he went through the mockery of a trial and was nailed to a cross between two thieves. Even while he was dying, his executioners gambled for the only piece of property that he had in the world, which was his robe.
When he was dead, he was taken down from the cross and laid in a borrowed grave provided by compassionate friends.
More than twenty centuries have come and gone and today he's a centerpiece of the human race. Our leader in the column to human destiny. And I think I'm well within the mark when I say that all of the armies that ever marched, of all of the navies that ever sailed the seas, of all of the legislative bodies that ever sat, and all of the kings that ever reigned; All of them put together had not affected the life of man on this earth so powerfully as that one solitary life.
Yes, here was a man.
The Pharisees were worse than the Nazis. Wheras a Nazi would cap you in the back of the head (usually), a Pharisee would try to get you crucified, or stoned to death.
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