Why is the Vatican so afraid of having the Turin shroud authencated? Will it prove they have lied?

Question

The first proposal to date the Shroud was submitted in 1979 by Gove and Harbottle (published in Sox 1981:161-167). It was, in my opinion, seriously flawed by the lack of consultation with archaeologists and experts from other fields. Although the more recent STURP proposal has not yet been published, there is reason (discussed below) to suspect that it likewise has not been researched to the degree warranted by the object to be dated, and that significant input from a range of scholars is lacking. Because the next round of scientific testing of the Shroud may well be the last of this century, it is imperative that such details as the amount and number of samples and especially the sampling sites be very carefully considered. Possibilities of contamination should be exhaustively investigated, and pretreatment should be devised accordingly.

Answer 1

Like all such "artifacts" they discourage actual examination because they know it's a fake.
Just like the "James Ossuary" I laughed my head off when it was declared "authentic" because no one in the archaeological world with an ounce of sense would say anything that stupid.
"Real" artifacts relating to mythological characters are going to be found out to be the frauds that they are eventually.
The church is just trying to delay the inevitable because of the cash flow these "relics" bring in.

Answer 2

Maybe they're just trying to protect the thing.
Or maybe they know it's a fraud.

But...suppose the tests do show it is real? Would that change anyone's belief?

Probably not.....well, maybe one or two, but most would be looking for some way to show that it isn't proof of anything supernatural, and anyway, how do we know it was really Jesus' shroud to begin with?

Let's face it, the battle lines are pretty much drawn...

Answer 3

Because it is supposed to be an article of faith

Objects of faith are often hoaxes, and even if they were not, they should not be subjected to true scrtutiny as it would be a sacrilege

the only way a study can be done about an article of faith is if it reinforces its supposed divinity, it doesnt really matter if you have to "twist science a little" since that would be directed by god as well

Answer 4

"Because the next round of scientific testing of the Shroud may well be the last of this century"

Uh, this century started only about four and a half years ago.

Answer 5

This is an article from "This Rock" magazine over at Catholic Answers:


Facing up to a mystery

WHEN the name "Jesus" is used a specific image of him comes to mind. It is a lean face with a long narrow nose and straight brows, dark hair parted in the middle and covering the ears and reaching down to the shoulders, a forked beard, and a moustache which thins as it approaches the lower lip.

Why this face? Nowhere in Scripture do we find a description of what Jesus Christ looked like. Was he short? Was he tall? Was he fat, or was he thin? Did he have long hair, or was he bald? Was he bearded or clean-shaven? In spite of this lack of testimony we have a face fixed in our minds that we recognize as that of Jesus--the Holy Face. Where did that face come from? Why do we have a very specific set of facial characteristics that artists have used persistently down through the centuries when portraying Christ?

Ian Wilson is well known for his best-selling books on the Shroud of Turin (The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus? and The Mysterious Shroud). Readers who have these books will certainly want to include Holy Faces, Secret Places as well.

The Shroud of Turin has stood as a modern mystery since the turn of the century when the camera was first used to photograph it. The depth and quantity of research from medical and physical scientists researching the Shroud has been impressive and has accumulated over the years, making the Shroud of Turin the most studied human artifact on Earth. The research reached a pinnacle in the late 1970s when the Shroud of Turin Research Project (a team of American scientists) was allowed to perform a large battery of non-destructive tests on the Shroud with state-of- the-art technology.

THE SHROUD of Turin appeared in France in 1352 without any pedigree or paper trail. In the records of the Eastern Church and in legends dating to the first century there were accounts of a "miraculous" burial cloth with the image of Christ on it. It was this specific face that artists were attempting to bring into their portraits.

Wilson traced the historical records and associated art work in The Shroud of Turin; he compared the results with the photographic evidence of the Shroud. Out of this he was able to build a strong circumstantial case showing that the miraculous burial cloth that had been in the East from the first century until its disappearance from Constantinople in 1204 was the Shroud of Turin. He traced the movement of the cloth from Edessa to Constantinople, then via the Knights Templar to the DeCharnay family. This family began to show the cloth publicly in its French chapel in 1352.

In his latest book Wilson again is a detective. The book appears after the first attempt at dating the Shroud by the carbon 14 method. This testing came up with dates ranging from 1260 to 1390. Holy Faces, Secret Places begins by assuming that if the carbon 14 test results are true, then another cloth will have to be traced to find the source of that ancient visage that has inspired the Jesus portrait.

Wilson begins his "amazing quest for the Face of Jesus" by setting aside the Shroud and pursuing another "miraculous" cloth--the Veronica. He attempts to track down and view the oldest and most noted examples of the Veronica cloth to find the Holy Face they portray. He finds many of these cloths are locked away in "secret places," or at least in places which the owners or custodians will not grant access to. Much of his searching comes to a dead end. The most noted of these cloths is that reputed to reside somewhere inside one of the four great pillars supporting the dome of St. Peter’s in Rome.

WILSON’S book is not just a historical investigation; it’s also an appeal to Vatican and other Church authorities to grant access to these "secret places" so the Veronica cloths can be examined. He dedicates his book "To His Holiness Pope John Paul II in the respectful hope that a little more glasnost may be allowed within the Vatican’s 'secret places.'<|>"

Wilson’s dedication comes across as a bit unctuous and won’t be effective in gaining him access. (He also repeats gossip about some Renaissance popes, and this won’t endear him to Vatican bureaucrats holding the keys to reliquaries.)

Wilson has done us a service in sorting out what can be sorted out regarding the Veronica. The reader finds himself agreeing that the cloths available for examination are not ancient enough to be the source of inspiration for the Holy Face. In fact it appears that the Veronica face is derived from the Shroud image.

The traditional face of Christ and that on the Veronica cloths is one that "floats." It is a face painted without neck or shoulders. This facial representation is unique to Christian iconography. Wilson illustrates that the Shroud can be folded in four to expose just the face and not a whole body image. Given the peculiar optical properties of the Shroud image, no neck is seen, and the face appears unsupported by a neck and shoulders--that is, it "floats." The book includes a fine selection of illustrative material (eight color plates, 32 black and white plates, and 22 text drawings).



We come full circle; by the end of the book the Veronica is set aside and the Shroud of Turin is picked up again. Wilson does this bluntly in a chapter entitled "The Shroud: Can Carbon Dating Lie?"

He examines the issue of the carbon 14 testing itself. He notes that carbon 14 has encountered significant anomalies in its results. It is not infallible. He gives us recent and notable cases of carbon 14 testing failures (e.g., the Manchester Museum Egyptian Mummy no. 1770 and the Lindow Man excavated from Cheshire, England). Carbon 14 testing labs gave conflicting dates on each of these, with results as far apart as 800 to 1,000 years.

WHO Jesus Christ was (and is) is paramount. Nonetheless, every time his name is invoked an image comes to mind. Where that Holy Face comes from will continue to fascinate, and for that reason we should have Wilson’s book on our shelves.
-- Clayton F. Bower, Jr.

Answer 6

seeing as how they've already declared it authentic, that would leave them with a little egg on their face