Experts propose new study on Shroud of Turin

Madrid, Spain, May 4, 2006 / 22:00 pm

During the International Convention on the Holy Shroud of Turin, which took place last Sunday at the Catholic University of Valencia in Spain, a group of experts proposed a new scientific study be carried out on the famous relic.

“We believe a large amount of new data could be obtained,” said Bruno Barberis, director of the International Shroud Center in Turin.

Barberis further suggested that an international team of experts could carry out the study.

The last exhaustive study that was directly performed on the Shroud took place in 1978.  “We believe that with today’s technological advances we could obtain important advances in the knowledge of how the image on the cloth was formed, which continues to be a mystery for science,” he added.

According to Barberis, the proposal has already been presented to the Archbishop of Turin, Cardinal Severino Poletto, “and now we are awaiting the decision of the Holy See.”

The director of the 1978 study, American doctor John Jackson, agrees with the idea and said “it should take place through non-aggressive methods, which is possible.”
 
More discoveries

During the Convention, Jose Delfin Villalain, professor at the Catholic University of Valencia, presented a study showing that the image of the man on the Holy Shroud was produced between 4-6 hours after his death.

Speaking to the Avan news agnency, Villalain said it was the most precise scientific data that has been gathered to date about the moment in which the image was produced on the cloth. 

If it was, in fact, the burial cloth of Christ, he said, “we could say that the image of the Holy Shroud was formed between 7:30pm and 9:00pm, as the Gospel text notes that the death of Jesus took place at 3:00pm.”

Likewise, Villalain said during the Convention that “for the first time, what may be images of internal organs” have been discovered on the Shroud.  The marks “correspond perfectly in their location and size” with the heart, lungs, kidneys, liver and colon, he explained. The “quantity and precision of the images is such that, although we cannot confirm it with absolute certainty, we do believe they probably correspond to the organs of the man of the Holy Shroud,” Villalain stated.