Joseph Wheless's extensive analysis in Forgery in Christianity
In 1564, Bishop of Ossory John Bale (1495-1563) appears to be suggesting that Pope Leo X (1475-1521) was privy to the truth based on his high rank, when the bishop recounts an alleged exchange between Cardinal Bembo (1470-1547) and Pope Leo X, with the latter supposedly exclaiming, "What profit has not that fable of Christ brought us!"8 Even if the Pope himself did not express such a sentiment, Bale—a high-ranking Church official—certainly is acknowledging someone's viewpoint, which means that at that time there were doubters in the gospel story as a fable. Since I have been online, beginning in 1995, many individuals have written to me about having been ministers, seminarians, Catholic clergymen, Jesuits, Presbyterians, et al., relating that, in the higher levels of the Church educational institutions, "they know it is all myth." As Wheless says, "The proofs of my indictment are marvelously easy.
