The Shroud Codex - Jerome R. Corsi [112]
“I don’t see why not,” Morelli said simply. “I’m sure we can arrange to bring Father Bartholomew to Turin to see the Shroud, and I don’t see what we have to lose. Either something happens that convinces you the Shroud is real and that Father Bartholomew does have a mission from God, or Father Bartholomew has offered you a way to put an end to all this drama.”
The pope sat down and looked carefully at everybody in the room, one at a time. Praying silently for wisdom and guidance, he had made his decision.
“Okay, Father Bartholomew. I’m going to grant your request,” the pope said, resolved to go forward. “Father Morelli will make the necessary arrangements.”
Hearing that his request had been granted, Father Bartholomew solemnly made the sign of the cross, slowly touching his forehead first, then his stomach, and finally his left shoulder and his right shoulder. Grateful that he was given permission to see the Shroud of Turin in person, Bartholomew felt confident he was going to achieve the mission for which he had returned.
“Now, gentlemen,” the pope said with finality, “if you will please excuse me, I have some work to do.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Tuesday
Vatican Library, Rome, Italy
Day 27
The Turin Cathedral requested until Friday of that week to prepare the Shroud for private viewing. The pope decided to use the time as an opportunity for Dr. Castle and the others to have a meeting at the Vatican Library with Dottoressa Francesca Coretti, a Vatican Library senior staff researcher who had been studying the history of the Shroud for decades. Her particular area of academic specialty involved researching religious icons and Church traditions since the time of Christ in the first century. Her goal was to find icons of Christ that looked like the face of the man in the Shroud of Turin and Church traditions involving a burial cloth of Christ that might document the existence of the Shroud of Turin from before the 1260–1390 A.D. dates established by the carbon-14 testing for the creation of the Shroud.
Pope John-Paul Peter I was confident Dr. Bucholtz’s presentation had made an impact on Dr. Castle, but there was yet another dimension to the Shroud the pope wanted Castle to understand. The Shroud had held the attention of believers for centuries. Millions around the world revered it as the authentic burial cloth of Jesus Christ. While Castle, as an atheist, tended to discount the importance of religious experience, the pope knew that as a psychiatrist Castle could not dismiss the deep emotional impact the Shroud had made in hundreds of millions of lives through the past centuries. Still, there was a mystery of lost knowledge about the Shroud, and the pope wanted to see if he could make that a subject for Dr. Stephen Castle’s contemplation.
At the pope’s suggestion, Father Morelli had invited Professor Gabrielli and Fernando Ferrar, along with his video crew, to attend the interview with Francesca Coretti, as well as to attend the private viewing of the Shroud in Turin arranged for Friday.
“If you’re concerned with millions putting pressure on the Church over the Shroud, why do you invite our biggest critic and the New York television news to attend?” Father Morelli had asked the pope, objecting to opening these two private audiences to the public by inviting the world press and a critic of the Shroud with a growing international reputation.
“The truth is that Fernando Ferrar and Professor Gabrielli counterbalance one another,” Pope John-Paul Peter I answered.
Morelli did not immediately get the point. “How’s that, Holy Father?”
“Gabrielli will do his best to prove that whatever happens