Trial and tribulation

There is a strange trial going on in Italy at the moment. It involves Luigi Cascioli, an ex-trainee priest who is now an atheist, suing a current priest, Father Righi, after the priest attacked him for casting doubt over the historical legitimacy of the gospels. He decided to fight back.

His complaint is as follows:
"This complaint does not wish to contest the freedom of Christians to profess their faith, sanctioned by art. 19 of the Italian Constitution, but wishes 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."

There are many who believe that there is no credible evidence outside of the gospels that Jesus was a historical figure. For example, Earl Doherty. There is interesting discussion of this on infidels.org.

The first hearing on the 27th of January contained an interesting statement from the defence. It was along the lines that the blame of a possible historical forgery is not to be put on Don Righi but on those who have sustained it before him.

Love that defence! The priest is only spoon fed. The church tells him what to say so he says it. He doesn't think for himself. It's not his fault that he doesn't ask questions about his own faith. It's almost an admission that they can't prove Jesus' historical existence.

Guess how much coverage this trial is getting in the Italian media? It's a round figure. More specifically, zero. Don't want people questioning the dogma that they have had forced down their mouths.