confirmed Friday, February 10. In a ruling released in Viterbo, a town north of Rome, Judge Gaetano Mautone also encouraged prosecutors to file charges against atheist Luigi Cascioli for "slandering" the priest, Enrico Righ.
Cascioli, who is in his 70s, was once a trainee priest, but drifted away from the Church and spent much of his life as a committed anti-religion campaigner. He sued Righi in 2002 after the priest attacked him in a church newsletter for casting doubts on the legitimacy of the Gospels, which explain the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus, who the Bible also describes as God’s only begotten Son and Lord and Savior.
Cascioli argued that Christianity relies "on purely anecdotal evidence." Cascioli has written extensively on the subject, and his book, The Fable of Christ, reportedly provoked Righi, his former schoolmate, to publicly criticize it in the church publication.
MILLIONS BELIEVING
The priest countered that millions around the world had long believed in the evidence that appeared in the Gospels as well as thousands of other religious and secular writings.
Righi’s attorney, Severo Bruno, said his client was pleased that the judge at least acknowledged that the priest had a valid argument. "The Rev. Righi is very satisfied and moved," Bruno told reporters. "He is an old, small-town parish priest who never would have thought he’d be in the spotlight for something like this."
Cascioli, a former schoolmate of Righi’s explained that he did expected the case to succeed in overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Italy. "This is not surprising but it doesn’t mean it all ends here," he added. The atheist is now considering taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights. "This is an important case and it deserves to go ahead," Cascioli explained. (With BosNewsLife Research and reports from Italy)
