Will displaying the Shroud of Turin restore faith in the church?

Featured, History — By ken on April 11, 2010 at 6:07 pm

The Shroud of Turin

With the current controversy over sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, now is an opportune time to display the Shroud of Turin?

The Catholic Church’s official position regarding the shroud — Christianity’s most famous relic — is that it’s an important tool for faith regardless of its authenticity.

The archbishop of Turin, Cardinal Severino Poletto, tells visitors to view the shroud with their hearts rather than their minds.

Turin Shroud Goes on Public Display

Worshiped by millions as the authentic burial cloth of Jesus, the Shroud of Turin is one of the most sacred and controversial relics of the Christian world. The image of Christ, believers say, was burned into the cloth fibers by the intense heat of resurrection. No one has yet proven it is the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth, but its haunting image of a man’s wounded body is proof enough for true believers.

The shroud of Turin went on public display Saturday for the first time since it was restored in 2002.

About two million people — including Pope Benedict XVI — are expected to view the shroud while it’s on view at the Turin Cathedral for the next six weeks.

David Rolfe is a filmmaker whose latest project was made at the Catholic Church’s invitation to coincide with the relic’s exhibition.
Rolfe’s film is titled “Shroud” and argues for its authenticity,.

The shroud is rectangular, measuring approximately 4.4 × 1.1 metres (14.3 × 3.7 feet). It is an ancient piece of hand-spun linen woven with a rare three-to-one herringbone twill composed of flax fibrils. The fibre is thought to be made from Near-Eastern or Mediterranean basin flax.  Its most distinctive characteristic is the faint, yellowish image of a front and back view of a naked man with his hands folded across his groin.

AssociatedPress April 10, 2010
The Shroud of Turin went on public display on Saturday for the first time in 10 years, drawing long lines of people to see the linen some believe is Christ’s burial cloth and others dismiss as a medieval fake.

While much of the data about the shroud seems to support its authenticity, there remains the question of where it was before it showed up in Lirey, France, around 1357.

Much of the Shroud’s early history is uncertain and fragmentary, some is only circumstantial, and some mere legend. One story is that one of Jesus’ disciples, brought it to King Abgar V, the ruler of Edessa (modern Şanlıurfa, Turkey), who according to an ancient legend, was the first king in history to be converted to the Christian faith by one of the Seventy-two Disciples. In 944, Emperor Romanus I sent an army to remove the Edessa Cloth and transfer it to his capitol in Constantinople. There it remained until 1204 when it disappeared during the sacking of the city by the crusaders of the Fourth Crusades. It is then thought that the Cloth was taken to Athens. About 150 years later, the Shroud was displayed in Europe for the first time in the small town of Lirey, France.

Historians think that the Edessa Cloth, also known as the Mandylion, is what we now call the Shroud of Turin.

Modern research now indicates that pollen grains found on the Shroud indicate that part of the its history was in Jerusalem as well as in an area that encompassed Edessa and Constantinople.

Around 1357, the shroud became the property of the House of Savoy, which grew from a family ruling a small county in that region to eventually rule the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 until the end of World War II.

The shroud remained the property of the House of Savoy until 1983, when the last heir died, it was then given to the Holy See, the rule of the House of Savoy having ended in 1946.

In 1532, the shroud suffered damage from a fire in the chapel where it was stored. Nuns attempted to repair this damage with patches.

In 1578 the House of Savoy took the shroud to Turin and it has remained at Turin Cathedral ever since.

Further repairs were made to the shroud in 1694 and in 1868 by Clotilde of Savoy.

In 1898, Secondo Pia, an Italian lawyer and amateur photographer, took photos of the shroud allowing the scientific community to study it. At this point no one was aware of the more recognisable positive image of the Shroud, for the faint negative face image on the cloth could not be clearly observed or recognised with the naked eye. Debates about Pia’s photos followed, including suggestions of supernatural origins and doctoring of the photographs. In 1931, professional photographer, Giuseppe Enrie, also photographed the shroud and produced the same results as Pia.

in 1973, a Swiss criminologist, took samples of surface dust and other particulate material from the Shroud’s surface and reported in 1976 that the dust included pollens from some plants that are exclusive to Israel and to Turkey, suggesting that the Shroud must have been exposed to the air in these countries.

In 1976, a VP8 Image Analyzer viewed the Shroud’s three-dimensional terrain mapping characteristic. The instrument used by NASA to draw relief maps of the moon by using dark and light shadows. This examination revealed that the shroud has three-dimensional information encoded in it, which is not true of portraits or paintings.

This then brought together scientists with many different disciplines into a group that would become the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP).

In 1981, STURP involved 24 scientists with hands-on access to the cloth for five days. They then spent three years analysing the data. These experts were in various fields — including anatomy, biochemistry, medicine, forensic pathology, chemistry, physics, pathology and photography. The ongoing research into the data has multiplied the knowledge about the shroud, though they have been unable to determine what caused the image. It was found that the blood stains are composed of hemoglobin and also give a positive test for serum albumin.

The report went on to say that the image was formed by something that changed the actual structure of the microfibrils of the linen itself.

“There are no chemical or physical methods known which can account for the totality of the image, nor can any combination of physical, chemical, biological or medical circumstances explain the image adequately.”

The team’s final conclusion was that “the image is an ongoing mystery and until further chemical studies are made, perhaps by this group of scientists, or perhaps by some scientists in the future, the problem remains unsolved.”

In 1988, three carbon dating labs determined the cloth could be no older than 700 years. Unfortunately the carbon dating was limited to a corner that had been repaired, which thus nullified the findings.

Dr. Max Frei, a Swiss criminologist, who took sticky tape samples from the shroud, claims he identified some 58 species of plants indigenous to the region surrounding Jerusalem, including Gundelia tournefortii, or a thorn plant.

Dr. Uri Baruch, a palynologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority and an expert on Israel’s flora, examined the pollen samples and confirmed Frei’s findings.

The shroud was again threatened by fire in 1997, but a fireman saved it from significant damage.

In 2002, the Holy See had the shroud restored. The cloth backing and thirty patches were removed, making it possible to photograph and scan the reverse side of the cloth, which had been hidden from view.

In 2004, The peer-reviewed journal of the Institute of Physics in London, on April 14, 2004, announced that Giulio Fanti and Roberto Maggiolo, both of the University of Padua, Italy, have found a second face image on the back of the Shroud of Turin. This image corresponds to the front image but is much fainter. And this image, like the front image, is completely superficial to the topmost crown fibers of the cloth. Because both images are superficial (meaning there is no image or colorant of any kind between the two image layers on the extreme outer faces of the cloth) and because the images are in registry with each other, all so-far-proposed fakery proposals are moot. The images are not paintings and not some form of medieval proto-photography.

Pathologist who have examined the Shroud have concluded that it is the image of a crucified man in a state of rigor mortis with numerous wounds on the body. There are blood flows on both arms and most notable is a piercing wound on one visible wrist. Similar wounds are on the feet.

The side has been pierced and there is a significant flow of blood and fluid. The head has suffered small puncture wounds, resulting in little streams of blood flowing into the hair. One eye seems swollen and the nose has suffered an abrasion. There are also abrasions on the knees, and shoulders, with signs of traumatic scourging on the back, chest and legs.

Many scholars contest the shroud’s authenticity, saying it dates to the Middle Ages, when purported biblical relics — like splinters from Jesus’ cross — surfaced across Europe.

Church Presentation: What Caused the Image?

Leonardo- The Man Behind the Shroud [1/6]

The Shroud of Turin: sacred Christian relic or clever fake? If it was created, it must have been by someone with extraordinary skills. The evidence points to one man, one of the greatest geniuses who has ever lived. Was Leonardo da Vinci the man behind the Shroud of Turin?

Leonardo- The Man Behind the Shroud [2/6]

This film weaves together different threads of this puzzle. It explains the enormous significance of the Shroud, and the controversy over its authenticity that has raged in recent years following attempts at scientific study.

Leonardo- The Man Behind the Shroud [3/6]

If the Shroud is a fake, who on earth would have had the ability to create it? – for the image on the Shroud is no ordinary painting.

Experts on the Shroud, on renaissance art, image analysis, forensic science, and crucifixion argue how this strange and mysterious image might have been created – or how it could not have been. Was it created photographically, in a camera obscura, was the image burnt on by pressing the cloth against a heated sculpture? Was it indeed painted, using a very sophisticated technique? Every method suggested points to the fact that the artist would have needed unique talents, and the film demonstrates that these talents were exhibited by one individual: Leonardo da Vinci – inventor, visionary, scientist, anatomist, artist and heretic.

Leonardo- The Man Behind the Shroud [4/6]

Leonardo is said to have studied crucifixion and was skilled in this area having formal training in the anatomy of the human body. As a successful artist, he was given permission to dissect human corpses at the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence and later at hospitals in Milan and Rome.

Leonardo- The Man Behind the Shroud [5/6]

Leonardo had not only the means to create the Shroud, he also had the motive. His was a life of facing challenges, of discovering the unknown, of pushing the boundaries… and of devising riddles and practical jokes. He also despised the excesses of the Catholic church – though he moved among the upper reaches of its hierarchy. Indeed, he was close to the Pope himself, through whom he was familiar with the Savoy royal family. And it was the Savoys who, significantly, owned the Shroud at the time a Papal blessing gave it its aura of authenticity.

Leonardo- The Man Behind the Shroud [6/6]

The shrouds’ ghostly image is believed by a minority of academics to have been created with photographing technology dating from the high Renaissance period.

One of Da Vinci’s notebooks contains the optical technique behind the Leonardo Da Vinci photograph technology and is labelled as ‘oculus artificialis’ otherwise known as the ‘camera obscura’.

The question now remains… can display of this ancient relic, so valued by the true believers, be sufficient to stimulate the faith in those who are feeling a little shell shocked after the most recent controversies in the church?

The ongoing Catholic Church sex abuse controversy

The Catholic sex abuse cases are a series of lawsuits, criminal prosecutions and scandals related to the sex crimes that were repeatedly committed by Catholic priests and members of religious orders, going back many decades but now increasing coming to the surface as more and more victims are prepared to speak out.

In addition to the actual abuse, much of the scandal focused around the cover up of this practice by some members of the Catholic hierarchy, who did not report the crimes to civil authorities, and in many cases reassigned the offenders to other locations where they continued to have contact with minors, giving them the opportunity to continue their sexual abuse.