Catholic social media runs red-hot for “new” Shroud of Turin research

Originally published by Catholicweekly.com.au

The Catholic world has finally caught up with The Catholic Weekly in publicising the latest research showing the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, with social media running red-hot over a 2022 study by Italian researchers at the Institute of Crystallography in Italy showing that the Shroud of Turin is indeed 2000 years old, as believed by Christian tradition.

Last year The Catholic Weekly published new findings from Australian journalist William West’s book Riddles of the Shroud: Questions Science Can’t Answer, which cited the 2022 Italian study conducted by Dr Liberato de Caro.

Dr de Caro’s analysis of flax cellulose in the shroud’s linen threads using “wide-angle X-ray scattering” was able to examine the threads’ structural degradation, and estimate its age.

His team deduced that the decay of the threads suggested it was older than a few hundred years, and was “fully compatible” with linen dating to the time of Christ, 55-74AD.

This suggests that the linen cloth, said to be the burial shroud of Jesus, could be a legitimate relic rather than a medieval forgery—as was previously believed following tests performed in 1988.

The study was published in the academic journal Heritage and has been enthusiastically promoted throughout the Catholic world over the last week, as a sign of the shroud’s authenticity.

The previous 1988 radiocarbon test returned results dating the shroud to between 1260 and 1390 AD. Samples taken from the linen cloth were analysed by three separate labs, casting doubt over its authenticity.

But Dr Liberato De Caro and his team from the Institute of Crystallography said the previous test may have been flawed due to contamination.

The level of degradation also meant that, were the shroud only seven centuries old, it would have had to be stored at a “room temperature very close to the maximum values registered on the earth,” the authors wrote.

However, the study does conclude by saying further investigation is needed to verify the precise date of the shroud.

This hasn’t stopped the study going viral across social media, with enthusiastic Catholics using artificial intelligence to match the face of Christ in the shroud with traditional depictions in iconography.

The shroud is one of the most studied and controversial artefacts in history, and one of the most revered.

In 2010, Pope Benedict XVI spent several minutes praying in front of the shroud—as did Pope Francis, in 2015.

The Shroud of Turin was first discovered in 1354 and is kept in the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in Turin, Italy.