The John-Henry Westen Show - Jesus' Crown of Thorns was More Like a Helmet Than a Ringlet ｜ The Shroud of Turin Suggests

00:00:00.080 What do we know from science and what do we know from faith? Many assume that these are

00:00:04.960 incompatible or in conflict, but here what's so remarkable is that again and again,

00:00:09.920 not only are they compatible, they're mutually illuminating.

00:00:20.400 Hey my friends, do you want to learn about the greatest mystery on earth? The most studied

00:00:27.360 artifact in the world bar none? That's something called the Shroud of Turin. It is the burial

00:00:35.440 cloth of Christ and I'm going to give you a glimpse into its history, which you can trace

00:00:41.760 right back to the beginning and the incredible discoveries that show you what the crown of

00:00:49.360 thorns actually looked like. By the way, it's not just this. What Jesus lay in his thing about

00:00:55.600 rigor mortis that he went through and about how he was crucified. You're going to want

00:01:02.080 to stay tuned to this episode of the John Hanna Weston Show.

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00:02:03.840 Before we get to our experts, let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross.

00:02:08.000 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

00:02:14.000 Let's go around here and take a look at some of the amazing images that are here that are

00:02:19.680 reproductions of the actual Shroud of Turin, and get to hear from the experts what they mean,

00:02:26.960 what they signify, and the incredible discoveries that science has been able to make to show us the

00:02:33.120 reality of his death, crucifixion, and resurrection. So like one of the things we're going to learn

00:02:39.600 about is that the Shroud gives evidence that the crucifixes we all see in our churches, they're not

00:02:46.720 nearly what Jesus suffered. It's much more relevant, it's much more real, as you saw in the Passion of

00:02:51.280 the Christ. Look, these are images based on the Shrouds. You can see the actual evidence for these

00:02:58.000 horrific wounds. They're everywhere. They take up his whole body, his legs, his torso, all sort of

00:03:06.480 lacerated. It's just incredible. This is not pretty. It is the visual that we have the evidence for,

00:03:16.560 the real wounds of Christ.

00:03:18.000 And this is Nora Creech. She is the one actually responsible for this display here at the National

00:03:25.840 Eucharistic Congress. And she's been working with the Shroud for a long, long time. So Nora, 0.73

00:03:33.920 if you can tell us first, what is most striking? I know you've devoted so much of your life to this.

00:03:39.840 What's most striking about the Shroud and this to you?

00:03:43.280 Well, the connection of the Shroud to the Gospels. It's a tangible evidence that our faith is true.

00:03:50.320 And the more you start examining the Shroud and the closer you look at the Shroud with the Gospels,

00:03:56.000 the more you say, wow, this is amazing that God left us this beautiful representation of what He

00:04:03.840 suffered for us. And then that He triumphed over that brutal, agonizing death that He suffered. And

00:04:12.080 the image was made at the moment of His resurrection. So it's, it's a real

00:04:16.720 significance that our faith is true.

00:04:18.560 Hmm. A couple of things that are so striking here. One is that you have a representation of the

00:04:24.000 Crown of Thorns. That's totally different than the Crown of Thorns. It's not like the normal round,

00:04:29.920 it's a helmet sort of thing. Yes.

00:04:32.000 Why is that? And how does that square up? And why from the Shroud do you get that?

00:04:35.360 Well, it's more like a cap of thorns, like you said. So it, the, there's the theological significance

00:04:41.120 is very deep. You can go all the way back to Genesis three, where with the fall and the,

00:04:46.080 the consequences of our sin were thorns and thistles. The ground itself produced thorns and

00:04:51.680 thistles. So that was the consequence of our sin. And so Jesus is actually taking our sin upon His head

00:04:59.040 and wearing it to the cross. Nobody else in recorded history was crowned with thorns. And then

00:05:04.880 the shape of the crown is the cap, which is like what the high priest wore. They wore more of a cap,

00:05:10.400 not, not a circlet like we are so used to seeing. So you have Jesus wearing our sins as the high

00:05:16.640 priest going forward to be enthroned on the cross. Whoa. One of the other really striking aspects here is

00:05:25.360 the image of the crucifix. Cause it's totally different. It's one of the arms is sort of

00:05:32.320 bent and the other one's straight, like you assume. And how do you get that from the Shroud?

00:05:36.880 And why is that thought to be the way it was? So you're referring to the Ricci crucifix,

00:05:41.360 which we have a copy of here in the exhibit. And Monsignor Giulio Ricci started the center in Rome,

00:05:48.080 which started to study very intensively the Shroud in a forensic way. So he was one of the first

00:05:54.560 researchers to really look at the wounds on the Shroud and what it told us about Jesus,

00:05:59.360 actual torture and death. And so what he discovered is that the blood flows on the forearms

00:06:05.600 indicated that that is the position that the body was in when Jesus actually died on the cross. So we

00:06:12.480 know from, from forensic studies that Jesus had to move, rotate around those nails and his wrists in

00:06:18.800 order to lift himself up to breathe and then to lower down to exhale. So there was this constant

00:06:25.280 movement. So there's two different blood flows on the forearms. And then once he died, that his head

00:06:32.000 was tilted down and to the right. And, and that's what's reflected on the Ricci crucifix.

00:06:37.600 There's so much, we can only touch a tiny bit of what's going on, but this is meant to engender a thirst

00:06:44.160 for it and also to get through some of the disbelief. Cause I know there's a lot of fakes and saying

00:06:49.360 that, you know, it's fake. And we had a big national geographic thing years ago that said,

00:06:52.560 oh, that's all nonsense. And they tested parts of it that weren't not even part of it really. But anyway,

00:06:59.920 what would have caused you to devote so much of your life to this?

00:07:04.480 So it actually goes back to when I was a teenager in high school. So I grew up in Colorado and a member of

00:07:10.800 my church community was on the Shroud of Turin research project team. And so when he came back

00:07:16.320 from Turin, after spending that time intensively studying the Shroud, he started giving lectures

00:07:21.760 in our community and my dad was very interested. So I would go to the lectures with my dad.

00:07:27.440 And so it was just a really great bonding between my dad and myself. And then I became good friends

00:07:33.440 with this researcher. His name is Rudy Dichtel. And he ended up teaching at my university,

00:07:39.040 University of Colorado. So when I would have a research paper to do, I would go to Rudy and

00:07:44.960 he would loan me his information that hadn't even been published yet. So I remember walking across

00:07:52.080 campus carrying a bust of Jesus that had been cut from cardboard based on the three-dimensional

00:07:59.200 information that's encoded in the Shroud. And so it goes all the way. It's been a passion of mine for

00:08:04.800 my whole life. And then I had the great gift of being a part of the first course in English of

00:08:10.880 the post-baccalaureate certificate. So I was able to take that and then they asked me if I would help

00:08:16.880 them. And of course, I was so honored. Beautiful. What could you say about

00:08:22.720 the Shroud's help to you in your devotion to our Lord?

00:08:28.320 For me, I think I was praying about that this morning that Jesus said, for those who have eyes

00:08:37.200 to see and ears to hear, here he is. He has shown us his face. He's shown us his blood poured out for

00:08:44.160 our salvation. And when I see it, I can only say, my Lord and my God, and thank you. And it's just,

00:08:53.280 it's such a profound experience to be in the presence of Jesus, to seek his holy face, and to

00:08:59.920 know that he's still with us. He abides with us through the Eucharist. He hasn't left us alone.

00:09:06.400 And it's a wonderful way to feel his presence. Absolutely beautiful.

00:09:12.560 Nora, thank you so very much. Oh, you're welcome. Thank you.

00:09:14.720 For all this, for doing this, and for your gracious hosting, so.

00:09:17.040 Well, thank you very much. I hope you've enjoyed being here.

00:09:19.760 And so this is Father Andrew Dalton, and he is a professor in that school,

00:09:25.600 Regina Postolorum, but also in that specialty diploma program that they have now, Athonia,

00:09:31.120 which, what does Athonia mean, Father?

00:09:34.160 It means burial cloths or linen cloths in Greek. It's just the word that we find in John 20,

00:09:39.360 where the empty tomb is discovered, or so we say. It's not so empty, actually. His body isn't there,

00:09:45.120 so in that respect, it is empty. But it's actually remarkable that one-third of that gospel passage

00:09:50.160 talks about the contents of the not-so-empty tomb, right? And so what's there? The linen cloths.

00:09:56.160 The linen cloths are described in great detail. That word is othonia, unlike in Matthew, Mark,

00:10:01.760 and Luke, when the burial is described, the word there is sindon, or shroud, which is singular.

00:10:08.400 Okay. And then this word is plural linen cloths. That's significant because it includes this idea

00:10:14.800 of the linen strips. Jesus was bound. His body was bound with these aloes and myrrh. 0.99

00:10:21.760 And so that requires at least one more strip, right? And so on the shroud, you see evidence

00:10:29.280 that the beard, there's depression in the beard. They kept the mouth shut. They wrapped around the

00:10:35.920 legs such that there's an interruption in the body image between the knees and the ankles.

00:10:40.240 Okay. Okay. As you can tell, Father is a biblical scholar. He's also a theologian. But, Father,

00:10:48.080 tell us scripturally how this lines up. Because the shroud was discovered, I mean, in popular,

00:10:55.600 you know, history, we know from what, the 1500s or something like that?

00:10:58.880 Well, even earlier, actually, because in 1356 or thereabouts, it's on display in northern France

00:11:05.680 Oh, wow. In the hands of Geoffroy de Charny. Okay.

00:11:08.640 And he has ties to these European knights that likely were involved in the Fourth Crusade.

00:11:17.920 Oh, wow. This is where the speculations begin, however, because we really don't know. Between 1204

00:11:23.840 and 1354, thereabouts, exactly the chain of custody, we do know that when it shows up,

00:11:30.560 and here we have all the documentation at this point, medallions even in the Cluny Museum in Paris,

00:11:36.720 show attestation of the de Charny family with the empty tomb. It's on public display.

00:11:42.160 So from there, we know every baby step forward of the shroud that eventually ended up in Turin,

00:11:47.440 but that's not until like the 1570s. Right, right, right. Okay. So biblically speaking,

00:11:52.720 then, what do you most see? Like when you looked into this and saw it, you're like, whoa,

00:11:59.200 from the scriptures, you can see this on the shroud or on the body as taken. You can get the image from

00:12:05.600 the shroud. Yeah. So there are two things. I mean, one is what we know from the scriptures,

00:12:10.960 and that's the pursuit of faith, right? Especially for those who receive that as the Word of God.

00:12:17.440 And then there's another thing is empirical science. What can we know by studying this

00:12:21.840 archaeological object, which is happens to be the most studied artifact in the history of the world.

00:12:27.680 And so that's, I think, something to always consider. What do we know from science,

00:12:32.560 and what do we know from faith? Many assume that these are incompatible or in conflict. But here,

00:12:37.920 what's so remarkable is that again and again, not only are they compatible, they're mutually

00:12:42.960 illuminating. And so, for example, what we read about in John's Gospel, you really got to pay

00:12:52.240 attention to the segue between the burial, which gives us quite a few details about these linen cloths,

00:12:59.280 and then as we segue into the discovery of the empty tomb. Some of these details are often missed,

00:13:05.600 even by biblical scholars. It's not often considered in light of shroud science. And this is where I say it

00:13:11.600 makes sense of the data points that are observable. Okay, so here are some of them. The first I would

00:13:17.440 point out is that the scriptures say how Lazarus was buried. And Lazarus, he has a sudarium, a face

00:13:26.320 cloth. He has linen strips that bind the hands and the feet. And then when Jesus is buried, it says he was

00:13:33.040 buried according to the custom of the Jews. And so we don't have to research beyond John's Gospel. We know 0.96

00:13:40.080 how Jewish burials took place. Remember when Jesus calls out Lazarus, he says,

00:13:45.760 unbind him. Evidently, there was something to unbind. And so it is with Jesus that he was,

00:13:51.920 in the same word appears, he was bound, his body was bound with a hundred pounds of aloe and myrrh.

00:13:58.800 That is 75 of our pounds. The Roman pounds are slightly different. But even still, this is remarkable,

00:14:06.160 that his body is surrounded by a hundred pounds of aromatics. And that's inside the cloth. Now,

00:14:14.240 now get to this point. This is, I'll go right to the main point here. When in John chapter 20,

00:14:21.120 in verse eight, we see, he saw and believed. You got to ask, what did he see so that he believed?

00:14:28.880 Notice that it doesn't say, despite what he saw, he believed anyway. No, it's in light of what he saw.

00:14:34.480 Yeah. And what, what did he see? What in particular did he see?

00:14:38.400 We get one little participle, one little word describing these linen cloths,

00:14:42.560 but we get it three times, or maybe two, depending on how you count it. But they're lying.

00:14:49.200 Some translations add words that aren't there because they don't know how to translate this.

00:14:53.920 They don't know how to make sense of it. But it's not that it's lying on the ground. It's that it's

00:14:59.280 lying flat. That is like a balloon that's lost its air. Because what was inside before, no longer is.

00:15:06.480 Now it collapses. But it's still bound. And I imagine that the allos didn't resurrect. So perhaps

00:15:13.920 they're still inside. Such that what, what he saw, he must have scratched his head. He was there on

00:15:18.480 Friday, John. He saw how the body lay then. He saw the dispositions of the allelands. Now he sees

00:15:24.720 what he saw, except that the pseudarium is now rolled up or folded up and placed on the side.

00:15:32.320 The, the, the cloths are lying there. I think he had reasons to believe. And that's really significant

00:15:40.640 because we as Christians, we know that our faith is based on testimony. It just so happens that there

00:15:46.800 were no eyewitnesses in the moment the cadaver became a living glorified body. But the shroud was there,

00:15:53.600 and these linen cloths wrapped every inch of his body. I think they bear witness first. And these

00:15:59.360 are the first baby steps in belief in the resurrection. That faith is shored up when they

00:16:05.120 have an encounter with the living Jesus. But the first steps are with the evidence that is given

00:16:11.520 in the tomb. Wow. You said pseudarium? What is that? Oh, the pseudarium is the face cloth or the napkin

00:16:18.400 or the handkerchief. There's, there are different names for it. But the, the, the sweat that is

00:16:24.080 sudor in, in Latin. It's a transliteration from the Greek. But we have a cloth that is in Spain to this

00:16:31.040 day. And by the way, its paper trail goes all the way back to the sixth century or 600s at least. And,

00:16:36.880 and there, imagine you fold the cloth just in half and then you press that to the face. And you, the,

00:16:43.360 the blood flows that saturate the beard, when unfolded leave a double imprint. So there's no

00:16:50.960 body image on the pseudarium. There's just a blood stain. But when you superimpose the amorphous shapes

00:16:58.400 of blood stains, we have rivulets in the nape of the neck on the shroud. When you superimpose the blood

00:17:05.600 stains on the pseudarium, they align. Forensic doctors say they covered one and the same person.

00:17:11.680 And you can study that blood. And they've, in fact, Heller and Adler in the States have, have done so.

00:17:16.320 By Mabalone in the, in Italy. And they have different characteristics that they've pinpointed.

00:17:22.880 This is blood of a man. Some have gone out on a limb to say this is even, um, AB blood. They've typed

00:17:29.440 that blood. It's, it's not from a woman. It's from a man in particular. Yeah. There's debate about that.

00:17:34.000 It seems to match up with the Eucharistic miracles as well.

00:17:36.640 Well, this is what's interesting, right? Um, wherever there's been Eucharistic miracles,

00:17:40.880 it's come back AB. Dr. Kelly Kurse is an immunologist who I have great respect for.

00:17:45.760 And he says, look, we, it may be that it's AB blood, but maybe we need to do further testing

00:17:50.560 to definitively say that. And so I, I, I invite the scientific scrutiny. I think that's really good.

00:17:57.520 Because we have excellent science on the shroud. And sometimes we're too quick to, um, put all of our,

00:18:02.560 our chips in something that's actually not definitively proved where there's still room

00:18:06.480 for a little scientific back and forth. And, and that's, that's a positive thing. We should

00:18:11.120 favor that. Cool. Last question, because it just occurred to me. So if the, if the Sudarium was

00:18:17.040 placed over his face, but then he was wrapped in other cloths and tied and so on, how did the Sudarium

00:18:23.280 get out? Yes. It's a valiquet. We don't have a written account of what took place with the Sudarium,

00:18:29.920 except for its discovery on Sunday. When it's discovered on Sunday, the language there is,

00:18:36.320 it had been on his face. Now it's folded up. What happened in between? We don't know. Could it be

00:18:43.520 that the disciples on Good Friday prepared it already and placed it there? Or could it be that Jesus,

00:18:49.600 risen from the dead, rolled it up and folded it up on the side? Exegetes go back and forth on that.

00:18:56.480 I tend to think that if this is the, the, the verse that is said one breath before saying he saw

00:19:03.680 and believed to my mind, that's a suggestion that the gospel writer is suggesting that the agency

00:19:11.360 that requires an agent is Jesus himself. I think it's one, I think Jesus risen from the dead placed

00:19:19.120 that there. I can't prove that. And you know, maybe it's otherwise, but I think he's trying to give

00:19:24.160 you the evidence that is, um, that suggests that there are reasons to believe Jesus is back and

00:19:30.080 he's out and about. He's, he's moving things. I, I can't prove that, but I think it's a,

00:19:35.040 I think it's a valid argument and I know, uh, biblical scholars that make that argument.

00:19:38.960 Beautiful. Father Dalton, thank you so very much.

00:19:41.680 Thank you.

00:19:42.080 God bless you.

00:19:42.560 Dr. Cheryl White, professor at Louisiana State University, is a professor of history

00:19:47.840 who has been working on the Shroud and is able to tell us some history about it.

00:19:52.160 Um, thank you for joining us.

00:19:53.520 Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me.

00:19:55.040 So tell us if you would, what, what to you is most striking about the Shroud? How do we,

00:20:00.720 I was talking with, uh, Father Dalton and he was saying about the history of the Shroud that was

00:20:06.240 first discovered in the 1300s publicly, but you know, how do we trace it backwards? How do we get

00:20:12.400 there?

00:20:12.800 Yeah. Well, we know that there is something that John describes in chapter 20 of the gospel,

00:20:18.240 right? That there is a linen in the tomb. So we know that in 33 AD, there is a Shroud that's behind

00:20:26.000 in the tomb. We must assume that that would remain in the apostolic community. They would have kept it. 0.99

00:20:32.080 Then we have a record of a transfer of an image of our Lord that took place in about the year 70,

00:20:38.400 from Jerusalem to Antioch. Saint Athanasius of Alexandria tells us this.

00:20:43.520 Then from 70 AD until about the sixth century, we know it's in Antioch.

00:20:50.240 Then there's a record in the sixth century that there's something being venerated there in Edessa

00:20:55.360 called the Acariapoitus or the image made without human hands. So that image was then transferred

00:21:05.360 to Constantinople in 944. We have a direct historical record that the Emperor Constantine VII received

00:21:11.280 into his collection, the burial linen of Christ. From 944 until 1204, it's in that city. Now,

00:21:20.000 this is interesting because this historical narrative I just gave you is not, our vocabulary is limited.

00:21:25.680 You know, we're not calling it the Shroud of Turin, but it's clearly a burial linen. And this is the

00:21:31.200 best part of it. At every place I just said, Jerusalem, Edessa, Jerusalem, Antioch, Edessa,

00:21:38.160 and Constantinople, the Shroud of Turin bears pollens from those places. Scientifically,

00:21:43.040 we know the environmental journey of the Shroud. There are pollens on it that place it in specific

00:21:47.680 places. So, for instance, someone had it in Jerusalem because there's pollens that are unique

00:21:54.720 to that area. It was in Antioch. It was at the Straits going into the Dead Sea. There's a very

00:22:01.120 specific pollen that places it there. So, this is CSI, right? There's an environmental journey of the

00:22:08.720 Shroud that we can align with what we know historically. Scientifically and historically.

00:22:13.280 Yes. Which is the beautiful harmony of what we do in Shroud studies is we all depend upon each other.

00:22:19.040 Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. What, as a historian, what has, other than that journey,

00:22:24.560 what has struck you most about the Shroud? Probably it is the way I have seen it affect

00:22:30.960 people. And if you, I will say this, no one is ever left indifferent. And it doesn't matter if

00:22:36.160 you're among the faithful or the unfaithful. If you're a believer or a non-believer, it leaves

00:22:40.800 no one indifferent. You cannot have an encounter with this image and not ask an important question

00:22:46.960 of yourself. Maybe two important questions. What does it mean and who is it? Yeah. Absolutely beautiful.

00:22:56.000 One last thing. The image of our Lord that's sort of reconstructed or made from the Shroud is

00:23:02.480 incredible. This is like a life-size image with all sorts of markings on the body. Right. But it

00:23:08.400 purports to be how they found our Lord or how our Lord was situated in the Shroud at death. Right.

00:23:15.920 How do they know that? How, how can that be? Because it's a beautiful image and, and it's neat,

00:23:21.760 but how do they know that's the way our Lord is? So the forensic body model is from information

00:23:26.160 extracted from the 1976 VP8 analysis of the Shroud, which is what first told us that image

00:23:32.480 characteristic, that there is spatial information embedded in the linen itself. If you look at the

00:23:37.920 linen, there are places where it's very dark and dense. That's because it directly contacted the body.

00:23:43.440 There are places where the image is not as dense and that's where there's a little more distance from

00:23:47.200 the body. So that spatial information creates a map. And from that map, we can then extract,

00:23:55.280 this is the position the body had to have been in when it was wrapped in the linen. Wow. Okay. So part

00:24:02.400 of it is weird because as we're looking at the image now, you can see it. The head is sort of elevated.

00:24:07.600 The legs are kind of bent and elevated a bit. Yes. The hands are, are down. So why is it not flat? Because,

00:24:14.720 because the body was in rigor mortis when the image was formed. So rigor mortis sets in a few hours

00:24:20.160 after death, but it does not resolve until about 48 to 72 hours. So this image was created within a

00:24:26.720 three day window of this man's death. Oh, wow. So then how did the arms, presumably Jesus was on, I don't

00:24:36.560 know, Jesus was on the cross and then, and then would, would the arms have been in rigor mortis? Someone,

00:24:40.960 yes. So we, we do know that someone probably forced the arms into position where they are folded over

00:24:46.640 the lower pelvis region. Uh, and we even have evidence on the shroud because of a contact blood

00:24:51.760 stain, uh, on the back of the knee that someone attempted to force his legs down too. But

00:24:57.920 as you can see, when you look at the forensic body model, there's a flexion of the neck

00:25:02.720 and the knees and the feet that clearly shows forensically rigor mortis.

00:25:08.720 The stunning effect of that just on a human level is so weird because the death would be so

00:25:16.000 vivid. Not only that you see the dead body of your son or your friend or your, your, your, your Lord,

00:25:21.920 the rig mortis is such a harsh reality of death. And it's so it's, so that pain that, uh,

00:25:31.840 could totally understand why the apostles were like, no, he's dead. He's dead. We've been there,

00:25:35.440 done that. He's dead, dead. Any, any last thoughts you want to tell us? Only that, um, I, I do hope that

00:25:42.000 if people see this and don't know much about the shroud, that they will seek out information about this.

00:25:47.200 It's an interesting, um, sort of, I, I think reflection for all of us that throughout the ages,

00:25:54.720 man has always been seeking his face. The, the, the histories of the Old Testament speak of it. 0.94

00:26:02.800 The psalmist writes about it. Um, the prophets foretell it. And in the shroud, you see, you encounter

00:26:09.760 the face that we've always sought. Hmm. On that, then I have one more question for you.

00:26:16.720 That face, um, which matches up perfectly with the, uh, shroud image. What is that? And then,

00:26:28.160 if you can also tell us about the superimposition onto the divine mercy face, that would be awesome.

00:26:33.200 So the, the very first, um, depictions of Christ in art, of course, are in the catacombs. And, and

00:26:39.520 Christ appears like a young Roman man. He's indistinguishable from anyone else. But suddenly, 0.96

00:26:44.880 beginning about the sixth century, after Christianity is no longer persecuted, you begin to see a very 0.81

00:26:49.760 radically different image of Christ, one that is more Semitic looking, one where he has long hair

00:26:54.240 and a beard, a plucked beard, a swollen eye. So, so for instance, the, the icon, the early iconography

00:27:00.400 that you see of Christ, um, sort of sets the standard then for how he is depicted in art.

00:27:06.960 That is modeled on the face of the man of the shroud. Someone had seen that image. It was the model

00:27:12.800 for what became the face of Christ. And, uh, and then of course, Saint Faustina and her vision

00:27:18.560 of divine mercy, um, was very specific about, uh, about having to go back and get, and get clarity

00:27:24.720 on what this image was supposed to be. It's very, very specific. It took a long time for the artist

00:27:30.320 to render exactly what she envisioned. And, uh, it has been demonstrated, uh, Adriana Kutis of Turin,

00:27:37.920 who's, who's done a good bit of work on this, has demonstrated that the divine mercy image and the

00:27:42.560 shroud image are in perfect alignment. It is so great to have with us Father Raphael Pasquale,

00:27:48.880 who is actually the, the founder of the Athonia Institute, which is actually part of Regina Apostolorum,

00:27:56.160 a Rome university where they studied a lot on the shroud. And then eventually, thanks to Father,

00:28:03.680 it became its own diploma, gathering the top experts of all the world, especially in Turin,

00:28:10.560 where the shroud is retained, of course, and therefore the grant, granting a diploma just

00:28:16.160 on the study of the shroud. And it is huge as we'll learn in this episode. Father Raphael, good to be

00:28:21.440 with you. Thank you. Tell us a little bit about this, this display here and, uh, why a new display on the

00:28:27.280 Shroud? So we began 2006 with a, uh, first exhibit in Jerusalem, in Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center,

00:28:37.520 with Father Hector Guerra, who, who has the idea to do this. And the, there were some other exhibits,

00:28:45.200 the second one in Rome, also in the States, in, in Poland, Portugal, and so. And we, uh,

00:28:53.840 uh, see, we need, uh, to do a new version because there are some, uh, new discoveries and we, uh,

00:29:03.360 need also to present the message in a, a more graphical and, uh, modern view, no? So, uh,

00:29:10.400 in one side, we want to, to show what is the shroud to the general public. But as you say, uh, we want

00:29:21.280 also to prepare person to know more profoundly, uh, the, what is the shroud in a very interdisciplinary

00:29:30.000 view, you know? So, diverse perspectives, historical, scientific, theological, spiritual, pastoral, and so.

00:29:37.760 Beautiful. Um, why did you call it Othonia? What is Othonia? Othonia is a Greek word that we find in

00:29:45.840 the Gospel of St. John. When the, Peter and John went to the, uh, sepulchre, they saw the Othonia 0.90

00:29:55.760 Kaimena, Kaimena, the, uh, the, uh, cloths, uh, lying in, in, in, in the place with the body was, uh,

00:30:05.120 where the body was released, no? And so, for them, it was the, uh, a sign to, to understand that the Lord was, uh,

00:30:16.640 recent. Indeed. Indeed. Now, the, the Church has studied the shroud for a long time now. Of course,

00:30:22.960 there's been many more recent advancements, which have really exploded. Yeah. But one of the things

00:30:28.640 I would love to learn from you is what the popes have said over the centuries about the shroud.

00:30:34.960 I can see mostly the most recent popes. I will begin with the Holy Father's Saint,

00:30:42.800 John Paul II. Mm-hmm. He went twice to Turin to, to visit and to venerate this, the shroud. And the

00:30:51.520 message, uh, in two occasions were, were very beautiful. The first time it was in 1980. And he, he,

00:31:01.920 so, um, presented the shroud as a very important relic that, uh, speaks about the,

00:31:09.440 the mystery of the passion of the Lord, uh, the, the passion, the death and the, uh, uh, resurrection

00:31:19.680 of the Lord. So is the whole mystery of the salvation in, in some way condensed in, in the shroud.

00:31:27.520 And he presents the, the shroud as a witness, a witness, silent witness, but that is saying a lot.

00:31:37.440 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's a, a very good image. And the second time, uh, there were a message,

00:31:43.600 very beautiful. It, it was in 1998. Um, and he presented the shroud as a, uh, a mirror of the

00:31:55.360 gospel in one side because the, that the gospel says about the passion we can see in this shroud.

00:32:03.520 Mm-hmm. And, uh, uh, also as a, uh, as a challenge for the intelligence because the scientific

00:32:10.320 people, uh, uh, is wondering how it's possible to have a kind of image like this. Mm-hmm.

00:32:17.360 This, this, the message for the Holy Father John Paul II. Pope Benedict, uh, 16, went to, uh, to

00:32:26.000 to Turin in 2010 and he spoke about the Shroud as the message of the Holy Saturday, the mystery

00:32:37.220 of the silence of God in the Holy Saturday. And it was a very profound message. He was

00:32:45.200 very impressed to be there in Turin in front of the Shroud. And he showed how he believes on the Shroud

00:32:56.980 praying in front of this relic. And so this message was very beautiful also.

00:33:07.140 Beautiful. One of the things I wanted to ask you about specifically, you mentioned Pope St.

00:33:11.300 John Paul II talked about how it's a silent message, but it's so full. It's so true because 1.00

00:33:18.440 when you look at it with the naked eye, you see, and when you know what it is, you still

00:33:24.840 love. That's our Lord's suffering is in some way represented. When you see the film, you're

00:33:31.740 given more. But then with all the scientific discoveries now, it's just incredible. It's

00:33:38.220 unbelievable. Really, really. It's so. I think it's like a codex. You have now the possibility

00:33:49.360 to read and to understand because we have the technology, the knowledge to discover all this.

00:33:58.360 Yeah. It's an unpacking from true science that you get from what looks like a simple cloth to a book.

00:34:08.500 And books of information gleaned from this is absolutely beautiful. Father, thank you so much for bringing this to light,

00:34:15.500 for really pushing that this becomes known because it's such a beautiful relic for the whole church.

00:34:23.500 I think needed so much right now. Yeah, I agree. Thank you very much. Thank you, Father. God bless. God bless you, too.

00:34:30.000 Okay.

The John-Henry Westen Show - July 30, 2024

Jesus' Crown of Thorns was More Like a Helmet Than a Ringlet ｜ The Shroud of Turin Suggests

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