Luigi Cascioli

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Luigi Cascioli is an Italian atheist and author of the book The Fable of Christ. When Cascioli was younger he trained to become a Roman Catholic priest, but he left off his training to become a pronounced atheist and he asserted that Jesus never existed. He later expounded on this in his book, which claims that Jesus was a fictionalisation of the historical John of Gamala.

In response to this book, in 2002, a local priest, Father Enrico Righi, published a critique of Cascioli in a church newsletter. On September 13, 2002, Cascioli filed a lawsuit against the Catholic Church, and Father Righi in particular, for libel against him, and for promoting fraud by observing that the existence of Christ is historically factual.

Originally, the Italian judge threw out the case, but the Court of Appeal asserted that there was a genuine case to answer. On January 27, 2006, an Italian judge began taking initial hearings to decide whether the case should be allowed to come to court. On February 9, 2006, the judge again threw out the case and recommended an investigation of Cascioli for slander against Father Righi.

On March 20th, 2006, the case was re-evaluated,^[1] and in July of that year Cascioli was fined by an Italian appeals court for bringing a fraudulent suit,^[2] a prospect that Cascioli dismissed, saying proving the charge would still require Righi to prove Christ's existence.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has agreed to consider hearing the merits of the case.