Turin display respects both faith and
reason By MARGARET
HEBBLETHWAITE
This is the Shroud -- Questa é la
Sindone -- says the voice through loudspeakers in the Turin cathedral.
Not This is the Shroud of Christ, for that would be to ignore the
carbon-dating tests that suggested a date between 1260 and 1390. Nor This
is what was once believed to be the Shroud of Christ, for that would be
to treat the question as closed and the mystery as solved, which would be just
as much of a lie.
Everything about Turin archdioceses presentation of its
famous icon -- they avoid calling it a relic -- is designed to
leave the question open.
I found it more than a moment of deep uncertainty -- it evoked
solemnity and reverence. The cathedral is darkened, and apart from the side
chapels, its baroque decorations have been stripped away or covered up. Blinds
of white cloth block out the high windows. Mauve velvet falls in rich folds
over everything in sight -- a penitential colour, softened for the Easter
season. Quiet organ music forms an audio backdrop. The pilgrims have been
shepherded into three files, and those who have stayed furthest from the Shroud
as they go up the north nave find they have the closest view at the end.
The Shroud itself hangs behind the main altar in a huge black
frame. It is displayed horizontally, as has been customary in its rare public
showings (there have been only five over the last century), with the face of
Christ sideways just left of center. The Shroud shines as the only illuminated
object in a darkened, hushed cathedral.
The marks on the cloth are gentle yet unmistakable. Most visible
of all -- apart from the dark scorch marks and the light patches sewn on by
loving Poor Clares after the fire damage of 1532 -- are the two crossed hands
and the stain from the wound in the wrist.
Let us pray, continues the voice in Italian, O
God our Father, the image of the Shroud points us toward the sufferings
inflicted on your Son, Jesus ... Another translation would be
refers us, or reminds us, or brings to our
mind the sufferings of Jesus. It is a careful formula.
He took upon himself the pains of all humanity. Grant that
we may know how to see him in every person, to serve him and to announce his
love. ... These words brought acutely to my mind the third hypothesis
about the Shroud: that it is neither genuine, nor a forgery, but an image made
by direct contact with the crucified body of someone else, in the 14th century,
perhaps a Jew crucified by Christians. This would combine the carbon-dating
result with the apparently inexplicable marks not made by any paint or pigment.
And if this were so, then the Shroud would indeed drive us to our knees in
penitence and in prayer, to see Christ in the pains of others.
Outside the cathedral once more, I delayed, reluctant to leave the
vicinity of the worlds most famous icon. (An opinion survey in an Italian
paper suggested that more than 90 percent of the worlds population has
heard of the Shroud.) Perhaps even more impressive than the Shroud itself is
the responsible way the church has presented it. There is just one small
bookshop on the way out -- hardly commercial exploitation.
Out of the 40,000 to 50,000 pilgrims who queue to see the Shroud
each day, no one pays a penny. It is possible to make a financial contribution,
but only if you look rather hard for a collection box. Yet the presentation of
the Shroud and the organization of the event is professionally superb and must
have cost a small fortune. Not to mention the cost of rebuilding Guarinis
chapel, behind the cathedral, which normally houses the Shroud. The chapel was
damaged by the fire of April 11, 1997. The repairs needed are so extensive that
they will not be finished before the year 2004.
In the gardens behind the cathedral are a dozen or so stalls
selling souvenirs, but an attempt has been made at sobriety. Instead of the
colorful display of trinkets near St. Peters in Rome, here each stall is
hung with regulation white curtains like a medieval tent, and the only color to
be seen is brown.
True, you can then buy a Shroud tee shirt, a Shroud shoulder bag,
and a Shroud headscarf. The prize souvenir must be the postcard-sized photo
that you tilt from one side to the other to see the face on the Shroud opening
its eyes and coming to life. Now you see him, now you dont. If some find
this tasteless (and I am one of them), there are others who find it a help to
their meditation.
To pass in front of the Shroud you must book in advance and then
line up for an hour or more in a long, covered arcade that snakes for 535
meters around the Royal Gardens. The intention is to turn a mere queue into a
pilgrimage walk. Notices remind people to keep silence and approach in a spirit
of prayer. Before entering the cathedral, a short video highlights exactly what
features to look for.
But those who have not pre-booked -- or those like myself who want
to hang around afterward -- can enter the cathedral by the central west door
without any queuing at all. Sitting or kneeling in the darkened nave, they can
gaze for as long as they wish at the illuminated Shroud ahead of them, though
they will be too far away to pick out details. A winking green security light,
high in the dome, acts as a reminder that everything is under control.
Turin in northern Italy is no peasant place, rich in superstition.
It is a city of sophistication and elegance where gracious colonnades and huge
piazzas are lined with expensive shops. And yet the forgery/icon/relic of the
Shroud seems to fit its surroundings without any sense of disharmony, with
neither conflict nor collusion.
The 100 churches around the city are open, and in many of them
there are acts of devotion -- a Way of the Cross, a rosary, a midday Mass, a
priest sitting ready to hear confessions. Around Turin center there is a rich
program of Shroud exhibitions, Shroud museums and free concerts in the
evenings.
One exhibition, in the archdiocesan buildings, expressed the
wounds of Christ through the sufferings of the modern world: the pierced hands
are unemployment; the shoulders bruised by the weight of the cross are the toil
of exploited labor; the wound in the side is death in the workplace. Again I
recalled the prayer before the Shroud: He took upon himself the pains of
all humanity. Grant that we may know how to see him in every person.
As I wandered through the city all day, drinking in the peace of
my pilgrimage, my thoughts gently turned over the Shroud mystery, now veering
toward one theory, now toward another, never settling on one with any
conviction. I was puzzled at how the wonders of modern science had been unable
to explain how the image could have been produced.
There is the pollen on the cloth from the Holy Land -- never
explained. There is the fact of a photographic negative picture -- before
photography was discovered. There is the mystery of the holes in the wrists --
when all contemporaries at the time wrongly thought the nails went through the
palms. There is the almost imperceptible imprint of a coin laid on one eyelid,
dating from the era of Pontius Pilate -- when any forger would have made that
piece of data far more apparent.
At night I returned to the cathedral for a packed and reverent 9
oclock Mass, celebrated with the Shroud as backdrop. Familiar phrases
became vivid as never before: He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was
crucified, died and was buried.
Behind the congregation, facing the Shroud from over the west
door, hung a massive, dark copy of Leonardo da Vincis Last Supper from
Milan. Its long white tablecloth, over which Jesus stretches his hands,
proclaiming the mystery of his eternal presence with us, mirrored the long,
white Shroud at the far end of the church. Some wilder theories of Shroud
devotees have even suggested that the Shroud used to wrap Christ was in fact
the tablecloth from the Last Supper.
However that may be, the real presence of Christ was with us that
night on the altar, midway between the icon of the first Eucharist at one end
of the church and the icon of the Passion at the other.
Coming out into the warm night air, I walked back to Turin station
past a huge picture of the Epiphany, cast up in colored lights onto the facade
of the Royal Palace. This is a city, I thought, that knows how to bring
traditional Catholic devotion into the heart of the modern world without
betraying either its faith or its reason.
Margaret Hebblethwaite is a theologian, author and assistant
editor at The Tablet in London.
National Catholic Reporter, June 5,
1998
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