This is funny. A priest is on trial for saying that Jesus existed. The article says:
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.
Which is funny, since A) the Roman Catholic Church hasn’t existed for 2,000 years and B) even if it had existed that long, Jesus most certainly historically existed.
Then we read stuff like this:
“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.
That is obvious bunk, as the only way that there could have been “fraud” is if Jesus didn’t exist. Thus, it is to establish whether Jesus existed or not; something that ought not be up to any legal system, as it is a historical question not a question of law.
But of course, the Italian courts is not the goal of this individual. Rather:
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.”
So the whole issue of whether Jesus existed and thus this priest committed fraud is all moot in the first place. This whacko just wants to charge the church with “religious racism” (whatever that is). I wonder if he’s read Galatians 3:28. For some reason I doubt it.
Finally, we read this:
“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
I wonder if Cascioli will apply this standard to himself. After all, he claims the existence of such a thing as a “wrong fact”, and since this case is certainly one in which he will gain something (he is, after all, the author of “The Fable of Christ”), then he has obviously committed “one of the gravest crimes” (and since the “gravest crimes” demand the gravest punishment, he should be executed for stupidity). Almost makes me want to write the Euro-peon Court of Human Rights and sue him.
