ITALY: The spirit of Don Camillo is alive and well and winning court cases in Viterbo, Italy. In a judicial tale that could have come out of the Little World of Don Camillo stories by Giovanni Guareschi, 76-year-old parish priest Don Enrico Righi this week emerged triumphant over a latter-day "Peppone" (the communist mayor and Don Camillo's eternal rival), atheist Luigi Cascioli.
In a decision that comes after four years of court hearings, a judge in Viterbo, north of Rome, dismissed a case taken against Don Righi by his archrival and one-time school companion, writer Cascioli.
The story began in 2002 when the priest criticised The Fable of Christ, a book by Mr Cascioli, in which the one-time trainee priest and now confirmed atheist argues that Jesus Christ did not exist and that the figure of Christ is based on purely anecdotal evidence.
Furthermore, Cascioli contends that Christ is "the invention of forgers" adding that the so-called Jesus of Nazareth, alleged son of Mary and Joseph, was in fact John of Gamala, called the Nazireus, son of Judas the Galilean, pretender to the throne of Jerusalem.
As further proof that Christ did not exist, Cascioli says that the work of contemporaneous Roman historians Pliny the Elder and Seneca bears no reference to any Christ-like figure. Responding to Don Righi's criticism of his book, Cascioli sued the parish priest for "abuse of popular belief" and "substitution of the person", in other words pulling a confidence trick.
Four years later Judge Gaetano Mautrone this week decided not only that the parish priest had no case to answer but also ordered that Cascioli be investigated on charges of having slandered his old rival.
Cascioli, however, has warned that the affair may not end here. He told reporters this week that he will appeal the decision and, if necessary, will take his case to the European Court of Human Rights.
Nor does he seem much perturbed by the slander charges. He argues that for investigators to prove that he has slandered the parish priest, the investigators will have to prove that Christ did indeed exist. "And they don't have the proof of that," he concludes.