Actually I once heard on TV a Catholic priest saying the people are unnecessary preoccupied with was Jesus a historical person and they should rather realize he is "always alive and present at every moment". So for Catholics it doesn't matter if he really existed or not, what matters is if you believe in him or not.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
