The Shroud Codex - Jerome R. Corsi [110]
Father Morelli wheeled Father Bartholomew to center stage, positioning the wheelchair between the Italian doctors on the priest’s right and Dr. Castle on the left. Going to the back of the room, Father Morelli brought forward a side chair that he moved so he could sit slightly behind and to the right of Father Bartholomew. By the positioning of the chairs, Castle got the impression the deck was stacked, the Vatican on one side and him on the other.
“Your Holiness, excuse me if I cannot get up to kiss your ring,” Father Bartholomew said humbly.
“That won’t be necessary,” the pope said, unable to completely disguise the irritation he felt at seeing Father Bartholomew in person for the first time. In truth, the pope felt considerable sympathy for the priest. He knew Father Bartholomew was suffering and that his wounds had to be extremely painful. Nor was he convinced that Bartholomew was insane. Conceivably, Father Bartholomew was confronting the Church and the world with a new reality that everyone would have to pay attention to, whether they liked it or not. Still, Father Bartholomew was causing the Church a worldwide commotion and the pope worried that Father Bartholomew’s crisis would be bad for the Church. “I assume you know everyone in the room.”
Looking around, Father Bartholomew acknowledged that he did. “It’s been my good fortune to have had the professional assistance of each of these distinguished doctors,” Bartholomew said deferentially.
“Father Bartholomew, please excuse me if I get directly to the point,” the pope said, displaying less patience than he had planned to show in this meeting. “I agree with these gentlemen that you are suffering a psychological illness from which you may never recover.”
“I understand that, Holy Father,” Father Bartholomew said deferentially.
“Quite frankly, I don’t know what to do with you,” the pope said, expressing openly how perplexed he felt. “Even if you came back from the dead with a photograph of Jesus Christ taken in Heaven, I doubt I could ever declare as a matter of Catholic dogma that the Shroud of Turin is anything more than an artifact worthy of veneration. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, Your Holiness, I do.”
“The minute I would declare the Shroud of Turin to be the authentic burial cloth of Christ, it would be just our luck to have some scholar unearth a lost Leonardo da Vinci notebook in which he recorded the methods he used to create the Shroud.”
Saying nothing, Father Morelli appreciated the dilemma. While years of study had led a once-skeptical Morelli to conclude the Shroud was authentic, he did not think it was possible to establish beyond any possible doubt that the Shroud was Christ’s burial cloth. In the final analysis, Morelli agreed with the pope. One would probably always need a leap of faith to see the Shroud as authentic, just as one always needed that leap to believe in the existence of God.
“As all you gentlemen know, my papacy has been predicted to be the last,” Pope John-Paul Peter I said with a steady resolve in his eyes. “Who knows? Maybe the prediction is right. But I will not gamble my future or the future of the Catholic Church on the Shroud of Turin. The moment I would make that proclamation, I would simply empower those like Professor Gabrielli, who is resolved to demonstrate how easily the Shroud could be some clever medieval artist’s idea of a joke.”
Everyone in the room sat silently, digesting the importance of what the pope was saying.
“Furthermore, I don’t fully appreciate how you have raised the stakes,” the pope said pointedly to Father Bartholomew. “Do you understand that?”
“I’m not sure I do,” Bartholomew answered, showing his confusion