Crimes have been committed.  They are of "abuse of popular credulity and belief (article 661, Italian criminal code) and the substitution of person" (494, Italian criminal code).  Who are the villains who have perpetrated such fraud and deceit?  Christians.

More specifically, a lawsuit has been brought against Fr. Enrico Righi, Roman Catholic parish priest in Bagnoregio, Italy, "as representative of ministers of religion, for abuse of popular credulity and impersonation."  The plaintiff is Luigi Cascioli, Italian atheist, and Fr. Righi is his childhood friend. 

In a nutshell, Cascioli is charging the Catholic Church (i.e., the Christian faith) with misrepresenting the identity of Christ and perpetuating a fraud. His legal challenge is that Fr. Righi prove the existence of Christ.   Cascioli explains in his lawsuit:

After long and deep studies consisting of (and not only) textual exegesis of the Old and New Testament and other Sacred Scriptures, the undersigned has come to the conclusion that many of the facts produced and presented as if being true and historical in the so called “Holy Scriptures”, are in reality false, first of all the historicization of the figure of Jesus Christ, for the most part based on the figure of John of Gamala, son of Judas, downright descendant of the Asmoneian stock.

In short, Cascioli claims that Jesus was not really Jesus, but rather a guy named "John", that Joseph and Mary are two totally imaginary characters, that the Bible is composed of fables and that Christianity is a fraud.

This is nothing new.  Cascioli is a pawn of atheism which has been a passing torch since the conception of Christianity.  No where in his claims of Christian deception is Cascioli able to substantiate his own claims that would disprove the existence of Jesus Christ.  Cascioli in particular is a student of Celsus.  Celsus was an eclectic polemical writer against Christianity in the 2nd century A.D.  Catholic Encyclopedia says of Celsus: 

Celsus’s work may be divided as follows:   a preface, an attack on Christianity from the point of view of Judaism, an attack on Christianity from the point of view of philosophy, a refutation of Christian teachings in detail, and an appeal to Christians to adopt paganism. Christ, he says, claimed to be of virgin birth; in reality, He was the son of a Jewish village woman, the wife of a carpenter. The flight into Egypt, the absence of any divine intervention in favour of the Mother of Jesus , who was driven forth with her husband, and other arguments are used to show that Christ was not the Messias. During the course of His public ministry Christ could not convince His countrymen that His mission was divine. As followers He had ten or twelve "infamous publicans and fishermen". Such is not the company that befits a god.

First Century historian Flavius Josephus testifies not only to the existence, but to the divinity of Jesus.  This is what Josephus, apparently a non-Christian, reportedly had to say about Jesus Christ:

"There was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call Him a man, for He was a doer of wonderful works. He was Christ. Pilate at the suggestion of the principal men among us, condemned Him to the cross.  He appeared to His followers alive again the third day."

Josephus names the same Pontius Pilate who is mentioned in the Apostles and Nicene Creeds (recited at Christian services around the world to this day), as well as in the Gospels of the New Testament which ties the historical Pilate and Jesus together.

It’ll be a long trial if the Italian court calls for the  2.1 billion Christians  in the world to be called to the witness stand.  Cascioli should be counter-sued to prove the existence of Mohammad, Napoleon, King Tut, Queen Cleopatra or Martin Luther.  All supposedly existed and left some mark on the world, but their existence is only proven through paintings and portraits, writings and documents.  Their posterity, if they can be traced, cannot out number the children of the faith of Christianity, nor can they rival the number of followers of Christ.  How can we say that a modern day descendant of Mohammad, for example, is truly a descendant when he may have been called "Abdula"?  Or that his birth place or parents were legitimately named?  Every historical figure should be suspect if Cascioli’s premise is taken seriously.

Even if Jesus were not real, or never existed, the Christian faith has played an undeniably positive role in history.  It is universities, hospices, charity for the poor, disabled and elderly, equality and rights for women and protection for children that have been established because of Christianity.  To take Christianity out of the world would be to live in a Stalinistic Soviet Union or a Communist China.  The truth is that Cascioli cannot disprove the existence of Jesus, or that Jesus is as historical a figure (as any other pre-technological figure) is not real.  The Christian Church traces through painstaking documenting the person of Christ to be more real than all other pre-modern figures.  Even our calendar acknowledges His existence, and as irony would have it Cascioli is sworn into court in the 2006 year of Our Lord, A.D.

(*hat tip: PCD & LinkedInUSAF )

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