The Shroud Codex - Jerome R. Corsi [19]
Castle was beginning to get the picture; still, there was something he didn’t understand.
“Father Morelli, excuse me,” Castle interrupted, “but Archbishop Duncan said you sometimes worked for the Vatican as a devil’s advocate in cases where saints are being considered for canonization. Is that correct?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Then what I don’t understand is why you appear to be accepting Father Bartholomew’s story so uncritically.”
Morelli knew that was a good question. “Have you heard about the Shroud of Turin?” he asked in return.
Castle vaguely remembered that the Shroud of Turin was a relic the Catholic Church owned and that many believers claimed it was the burial cloth of the historical Jesus Christ.
Morelli confirmed this was correct. “The Shroud has an image on it of a crucified man that for centuries the Catholic Church has venerated as a relic. While the Church has never proclaimed the Shroud to be from the time of Christ or the actual burial cloth of Christ, millions of believers have concluded just that, over centuries.”
“What’s the point?” Castle asked.
“The point is that Father Bartholomew has begun to resemble the man in the Shroud of Turin, both in terms of his physical appearance and now in terms of his wrist injuries. This is what has drawn the Vatican’s attention.”
Morelli pulled two more photographs from his briefcase and handed them to Castle one at a time. “This is what Bartholomew looked like before the accident and this is what he looks like today.”
Castle was shocked. What he saw in the first photograph was a smiling young man in his early forties who looked confident of his future. What he saw in the second photograph was a much older man. Bartholomew had grown a long beard and his hair flowed down to his shoulders.
“When were these two photos taken?”
“The first was about four years ago, before his accident,” Morelli explained. “The second was taken yesterday, in the hospital.”
Castle could not believe the difference. “In four years, the man in the photographs had gone from a clean-shaven young man who appeared alive and full of health, to a bearded, long-haired, much older man who looked very troubled with pain and sorrow.”
“Now look at this.” Morelli handed Castle yet a third photo. “This is the image of the man in the Shroud of Turin. When you meet Father Bartholomew, it should be obvious how closely today Father Bartholomew has come to look exactly like the man in the Shroud.”
The image of the man in the Shroud of Turin looked ghostly, yet it had a clearly photographic quality about it.
At first the face looked blurry to Castle, but the more he studied it, the more distinct the facial features became to him. Studying the face, Castle began to see the man many believe to be Jesus. The man in the Shroud appeared to have his eyes closed, as if in sleep or in death. Somehow the face conveyed a quiet dignity in its strong, square lines and elongated rectangular shape. The nose was prominent, but well proportioned. The mouth was closed in what looked like a thoughtful repose. The man in the Shroud looked almost as if he could be sleeping, not dead. Still, Castle could read sorrow and pain in the face, and he noted what looked like white streaks, possibly of blood, that streamed from the forehead and seemed to saturate the long hair that draped down on each side of the man’s face.
“How is this photograph possible if the Shroud is two thousand years old?” Castle asked. “Photography was not invented until the 1820s.” Castle was struggling to understand how this image had such photographic qualities when it was made either 1,800 years before photography was discovered, if the Shroud was the actual burial cloth of Christ, or some five hundred to six hundred years before photography was discovered, if the Shroud was a medieval forgery.
“It’s complicated,” Morelli answered. “But to give you the simple explanation, the Church has discovered over time that the Shroud itself is a sort of negative. Surprisingly, the man in the Shroud is most