Priest could stand trial for claiming Jesus existed

AN ITALIAN judge is to rule on whether a small-town parish priest should stand trial for asserting Jesus Christ existed, following a hearing yesterday.

The priest’s atheist accuser, Luigi Cascioli, says the Catholic Church has been deceiving people for 2,000 years with a fable that Christ existed, and that Fr Enrico Righi violated Italian law by reasserting the claim.

Lawyers for Fr Righi and Mr Cascioli, old schoolmates, made their arguments in a brief, closed-door hearing before Judge Gaetano Mautone in Viterbo, north of Rome.