Pope Francis Prays In Front Of The Shroud Of Turin

Carol Kuruvilla
Updated
In this pool photo taken Sunday, June 21, 2015, and made available Monday, June 22, Pope Francis prays in front of the Holy Shroud, the 14 foot-long linen revered by some as the burial cloth of Jesus, on display at the Cathedral of Turin, Italy, Sunday, June 21, 2015. Francis visited the long linen with the faded image of a bearded man, during his two-day pilgrimage to Turin. (L' Osservatore Romano/Pool Photo via AP) (Photo: )

The Shroud of Turin has captivated thousands of Christians over centuries, some of whom believe it covered Jesus Christ during his burial -- and on Sunday, Pope Francis joined a throng of pilgrims to see the 14-foot strip of cloth in the Italian city of Turin.

The pope prayed silently before the shroud for several minutes inside Turin’s cathedral. According to CNS, Francis crossed himself and placed his hand on the case before walking away.

During an outdoor Mass at Turin’s Piazza Vittorio later on in the day, Francis said the shroud was an “icon of [Jesus’] love.”

"The shroud attracts towards the face and the martyred body of Jesus and at the same time pushes us towards the face of those who suffer or are unjustly persecuted," Francis told the crowd of 100,000 people assembled in the square, according to CNN.

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pope francis shroud
pope francis shroud

The shroud is being displayed inside a protective climate-controlled case inside Turin’s cathedral from April 19 to June 24, for the first time since 2010. More than 1 million tourists have reserved free tickets to see it.

Pope Benedict XVI visited the shroud in 2010 and Pope John Paul II paid his respects in 1998.

Those who believe the shroud to be authentic point to the apparent image of a man imprinted on the cloth, whose wounds seem to reflect those described in the narrative of the crucifixion. However, skeptics believe the shroud is medieval forgery. Carbon-14 testing from 1988 dates the shroud to the years 1260 and 1390.

John Iannone, a Catholic expert on the Shroud, told Vatican Radio he doesn’t believe the 1988 tests can be trusted, claiming the fibers the researchers analyzed were contaminated by medieval cotton. He says analysis conducted on the blood on the shroud seemed to show it belonged to a human male from the Middle East who died under duress.

“The thing I would like to see is that people understand that what we know today of the blood stains on the shroud, the anatomy of the crucifixion as forensic pathologists explain it ... all of this points to the fact that this is the authentic burial cloth of the historic Jesus,” Iannone said.

He called Pope Francis’ visit a “wonderful” sign.

“It raises public awareness of the fact that the church does consider this a very powerful icon as they call it now, reminding us of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus,” Iannone continued. “It just calls attention and hopefully raises more questions.”

The Negative Shroud Face

There is plenty of scientific evidence that the Shroud is a burial cloth from first-century Palestine, evidence without all of the problems of the 1988 carbon-dating. For instance, pollens lifted from the cloth fibers indicate that it was once in Israel; a seam used in the manufacture of the linen is identical to one found only on a first-century cloth from Judea; the wound-marks are composed of real blood; and an alternative, peer-reviewed test of the age of the cloth found that it was over 1300 years old.

The Face of the Shroud

This image cannot be a medieval fake: the image does not match the style, technique, or concepts of medieval imagery, and it cannot be a painting or a rubbing. Skeptics have suggested various weird and wonderful ways in which it might have been produced; they all contradict each other, and none is remotely plausible.
This image cannot be a medieval fake: the image does not match the style, technique, or concepts of medieval imagery, and it cannot be a painting or a rubbing. Skeptics have suggested various weird and wonderful ways in which it might have been produced; they all contradict each other, and none is remotely plausible.

The Full Frontal Image of the Shroud

It may be difficult for us to grasp, living in a scientific age, but two thousand years ago people really did think that images, especially natural images like shadows and reflections, were somehow alive. This instinct is known as animism. So the shadow-like Shroud image would have been seen by Mary Magdalene and the disciples as a living double of Jesus appearing after his death -- a resurrected Jesus.

The Full Frontal Image of the Shroud in Negative

The Shroud was first photographed in 1898, revealing that it is an astonishingly realistic negative image. This unequivocally proves that the Shroud cannot be a medieval man-made forgery, for no one knew how to produce such an image in those days - or would have wanted to. And no, Leonardo couldn't have either - apart from anything else, he was born a century after the Shroud is first documented in France.

A Miniature By Giovanni Battista della Rovere

A miniature by Giovanni Battista della Rovere, painted between 1625 and 1630. Rather than a forgery or supernatural phenomenon, the image on the Shroud could have been formed naturally when chemicals from Jesus' decomposing body reacted with starch deposits on the linen fabric to produce a unique stain via a Maillard reaction (the type of reaction that makes bread crust turn golden brown). This makes sense in relation to the Biblical record of Jesus' burial. All of the synoptic gospels record that the body was wrapped for burial in a linen sheet, and Mark and Luke imply that the burial was left unfinished, setting the stage for the formation and discovery of the Maillard reaction image.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.