Shroud Authentic?

 

One of the last things Pope Emeritus Benedict did before abdicating was to order a brief exposition of the Shroud of Turin for Holy Saturday.  Although it will not be a major public event, I think only a selected number of people will actually view it - groups of sick people and the young among them, Benedict's order includes live transmission of the exposition and a visual recording so the whole world can join in. 

 

This comes at an appropriate time, not only because it is the Triduum, but a new investigation by scientists at the University of Padua has revealed that the Shroud dates from a period between 300 BC and 400 AD, increasing the chances of its being authentic.   This overturns the carbon dating tests which dated the cloth to the Middle Ages.  This is good news.  While our faith does not depend on the authenticity of any relic, the Shroud offers us a profound meditation on the passion and death of the Lord.  It is also a frontier where science and faith work together, undermining the secularist myth that the two are incompatible an that the Church rejects scientific research. 

 

In other news: there was an extraordinary statement from the Irish Bishops in response to the government's plans to introduce gay marriage in Ireland.  The Bishops in their submission to the Constitutional Convention (a group of people who have been empowered by the government to look at the Constitution and see what needs updating, scrapping or rewriting) they have indicated that if marriage is redefined and gay marriage introduced, the Catholic Church will no longer assist or facilitate the civil aspect of Catholic weddings. 

 

At the moment we priests conduct the civil aspects for those couples we marry in Catholic ceremonies - that will cease if the government goes ahead with its plans.  Apart from a taking a stance, it will inconvenience the State: we save the government money as we cover most weddings.   If the Church withdraws the State will have to provide more registrars as Catholic couples will have to attend a separate civil ceremony as well as the Catholic one.

 

I note the media, as ever, stretch to present the story in as negative a light as possible for the Church - I note the Independent describes the action as a "boycott".  It is not boycotting, it is no longer extending a favour to the State, one which, given the growing call for complete separation of Church and State, may well be long overdue.  

 

Despite its aggressive attitude towards the Church in recent years, the State actually depends on the Catholic Church in many areas of life.  For one thing, it depends on our charitable works to help the poor.   Working with a Catholic charity I often come across government officials sending poor people to us to supplement their income when government benefits fall short of the needs of individuals and families.   You don't hear about that in parliament.

The Shroud Is A Fake......

The Shroud of Turin is a fake, some scientists and atheists say.  "We know it's a fake.  Okay all the evidence (scientific, historical, literary, botanical) suggests it may be authentic.  We can't figure out how the image was made - we can't reproduce it correctly with all our technology, but that doesn't mean a medieval artist couldn't do it.  We stick by the carbon dating tests that have now been discredited - we refused to accept that they are discredited.  It is a fake.  Okay, there are more questions than answers and every scientific examination presents even more questions - it is a mystery - but it is not the shroud of Christ."

Such is the response I hear in Tom Chivers's article ("The Turin Shroud is Fake. Get over it.") in the Telegraph.  In terms of our faith, it matters little that it is the Shroud of the Lord - our faith does not depend on it. However, without being credulous, we must also be open to the possibility that God might actually have left us a document of the Resurrection to strengthen our faith.  That may well be the Shroud of Turin.

That said, it seems, given the big picture, with all the evidence before us, the chances are that it is authentic.  The only (and the I mean the ONLY) examination which casts doubt over authenticity is the carbon dating, and a number of scientists have doubts about those results.  If this was a court case and the jury had to take all evidence into account, they would probably go for authenticity, and question the only test over which there is a shadow.  Perhaps scientists that doubt may need a chat with the very uncomfortable archaeologists who have discovered Sodom and Gomorrah.

So, will we revise Chivers headline and suggest: "The Turin Shroud may be authentic, get over it!"?

Not A Da Vinci At All, It's A Giotto!

You got to love some people. It seems that the Shroud of Turin was not painted by Leonardo da Vinci, as many have maintained, but by Giotto, or at least this is what one Italian artist wants us to believe.   This theory will get the same response as the "Da Vinci" one.  As far as the most up to date scientific techniques can discern there is no paint on the Shroud, and the image was produced by some sort of process which is still unknown to us, though similiar to photography.  So far, though, the most up to date photographic techniques have failed to reproduce the Shroud exactly.

Of course we will never convince those who do not believe (or will not believe).  My own personal opinion is that it is genuine and science is gradually edging towards that conclusion.  In reality there is more scientific and historical evidence in favour of authenticity than it being a medieval fake.  The Shroud's critics, of course, tend to pick and choose the evidence they want to acknowledge.  The Carbon-14 test is still being resurrected (no pun intended) long after sindonologists have left it behind and moved on, recognising that it is no longer reliable. 

But you have to hand it to the critics they are still working hard; many of them cannot bring themselves to accept it - to do so would mean they would have to accept much more than they want to.  The more the Shroud is investigated, the more of an enigma it becomes, the more mysterious and more complex.  The more they know about it, the more they realise they know so little.   I think there is a sign in that.

Interestingly, the whole field of study which has developed around the Shroud - sindonology, has done a great deal to bring science and religion together.  In this unique area of research numerous disciplines work together to unravel this scientific and historical tapesty, or what has been called, an icon of the suffering Christ. 

Terrorism and Nepotism

These are things we do not associate with the two saints whose feast we celebrate today, even though each one was in a prime position to go down the wrong road: SS Simon and Jude.  Both are apostles, the foundation of our Church, and both come from different backgrounds.

St Simon is commonly called the Zealot.  The Zealots were a group of extremist Jews who were in constant rebellion against the Romans during the occupation of Israel.   Organised in the year 6 AD, the Zealots continue their struggle right up to 66AD when they incited the revolt which would lead to Masada, and the eventual destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD.   Simon was one of their group, and was converted from his ways by the Lord, though the story of his conversion is not recorded in the Gospels.  The Zealots were hanging around Jesus for a time, thinking he was the Messiah and would lead them in their revolt - they were correct in the first, wrong in the second.  Simon had to come to realise that the Messiah was not to be a political figure - salvation is not political, it is on the level of the entire person.  That is a message which was, and is, hard for many to get.  In the Church today we have our Zealots who want a revolution within the Church as the means of reform, but that's not how things work.  Living in an age when the world lives in fear of terrorism, St Simon should be a patron for these times.

St Jude is a different character.  He was a relation of the Lord, and so well placed to climb the greasy pole, but it seems he had no intention: it was the brothers James and John who fell into that particular trap, although Scripture notes the apostles did squabble over who was the greatest, and Jude is not excluded.  However, he came to his senses on that one, as did all the apostles, and he was content to serve rather than be served: a good lesson for those in the Church who want to further their ambitions or agendas, be they clerical or lay.  Jude is often portrayed holding an image of Jesus at his breast.  Some say it symbolises his relationship with Jesus, both as relation and loving disciple, but in fact it refers to the Cloth of Edessa - the mysterious cloth imprinted with the Image of Jesus which, according to tradition, the apostle brought to the king of Edessa.  Recent research suggests that this cloth was in fact the Shroud of Turin.  If it is, then St Jude was a custodian of the relic.

St Simon and St Jude were martyred, and their relics eventually brought to Rome, where they lie under the altar of the Chapel of St Joseph in St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.