Irish priest proves Jesus never existed: Church bans him from teaching and speaking to media

Brodie is apparently the first known active - and certainly the most high-profile - priest to have claimed that Jesus did not exist. The final judgement of the Dominican Order on the matter was

In September 2012, Fr Thomas L. Brodie, O.P., of the Irish Province, published . In this 'Memoir of a Discovery', the author, already well-respected for his commentaries on the Gospel of John and for his study, , stated categorically that his studies proved that Jesus did not exist as a historical person. He had expected that reviewers or commentators would understand from his earlier works that this was the position he had held since the 1970s. But there had been no such recognition; and the time, he believed, had come to state his views bluntly.

Because this claim was so much at odds with Christian tradition, in November 2012, the Prior Provincial of Ireland, Fr Gregory Carroll, O.P., instructed that, while the controversy about the book was being addressed, Tom Brodie must withdraw from all ministry and from any teaching or writing, or contacting the media. Co-incidentally, at about the same time Tom Brodie resigned from being moderator and director of the Dominican Biblical Institute Limerick.

Fr. Brodie's book

Under Dominican Order procedures, its Irish Province set up a committee of five experts from within the Province to examine the work under dispute.

After providing Tom Brodie with written copies of their assessments of , and having received a written response from him, the committee spent a morning discussing the work with him. Following on these deliberations, the committee advised that they judged to be "" (a phrase from the Order's own legislation). Accepting this assessment, the Provincial continued the sanctions on Tom Brodie - that he withdraw fully from ministry and from all forms of teaching, writing, or making public statements.

On 17 May 2013, at the request of Tom Brodie, Fr Gregory Carroll, Prior Provincial, referred the matter to the Master of the Order, its worldwide head.

On 29 August 2013, the Master, Fr Bruno Cadoré, appointed a committee to examine the book and report to him. This committee, made up of three professors from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, had the Master's Assistant for the Intellectual Life, Fr Michael Mascari, as non-voting chairman. The members of this committee provided the author with written assessments of , and received from him a written response.

On 20 February 2014, the committee had a two-hour meeting in Fribourg with Tom Brodie to discuss their reports and his response. Following this meeting the committee formally advised the Master that the publication was "", and recommended that the sanctions imposed on Thomas Brodie by the Province of Ireland were appropriate.

In a letter dated 3 March 2014, Fr Bruno Cadoré concurred with the judgement of the committee and instructed that the sanctions already in place be maintained.

Despite the restrictions placed on him, Tom Brodie remains a brother of the Irish Province, and the Province continues to care for him and provide for him. From the point of view of the Order, the matter is closed.

And so, at the age of 71 years, Thomas L. Brodie appears to have been condemned to live out the rest of his life in silence in exchange for retirement care.

It's an amazing and horrible thing to happen to someone seeking Truth, but it's also not surprising that in response to his in-depth scholarly research showing evidence for a lack of historicity of Jesus, the Dominican hierarchy's counter argument is to call his evidence "imprudent and dangerous".

While laconic in the extreme, maybe the Dominican leadership is being as honest as it can be with this response. After all, it isn't very prudent, , to have one of their priests point out that Jesus did not exist. It's also dangerous, , for that truth to be revealed to the world.

They couldn't refute Brodie's evidence - which tears down the entire edifice of their belief system - so they shut him up.