The Shroud Conspiracy

by John Heubusch

  Click.

  “Here we supposedly have the Holy Lance, the spear used to pierce the side of Jesus when he was on the Cross to ensure that he was dead.”

  Click.

  “Here we have the supposed Holy Sponge, the one described in the Bible as having been dipped in vinegar and offered to Jesus on the Cross. How many of you have kept a sponge around for more than a few months?”

  Click.

  “Not to beat a dead horse, but here we have the supposed Column of Flagellation,” he said, “the post Jesus was strapped to during the Flagellation, his torture. This is kept in the Basilica of St. Praxedes in Rome.”

  Click.

  “Now here before us come the supposed Gifts of the Magi to baby Jesus, on display at St. Paul’s Monastery on Mount Athos in Greece.”

  Click.

  “These are the supposed clothes of the baby Jesus in Dubrovnik’s Cathedral in Croatia.”

  Click.

  “And this unrecognizable object is”—he paused and winced—“well, a number of churches in Europe have claimed at one time or another to possess—at the same time, mind you—the Holy Prepuce: the foreskin from Jesus’s circumcision.”

  The blonde put down her soda and leaned forward in her seat. “Oh, for God’s sake,” she moaned.

  “For God’s sake, indeed,” Bondurant whispered.

  “Which brings us to the most remarkable and controversial religious relic in the history of mankind.” He moved to stand directly beside the screen for effect.

  Click.

  “The Holy Shroud,” he said with false reverence.

  An outline of a body stared down from the screen and glowed in the dim light like a phantom. It was the startling, lifelike, and sublime image purported to be of the body of Jesus Christ, the son of God. Some of the students shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

  “For those of you who are wondering whether this will be covered on the midterm,” he said, “Father Cleary tells me the answer’s yes.”

  The sound of laptops and notebooks opening filled the room. Every student leaned in and peered at the screen.

  “What you are looking at is a negative image of a photograph of the Shroud of Turin—the Sindon—taken in 1898 by amateur photographer Secondo Pia. ‘Sindon’ is a word derived from the New Testament. It refers to a fine linen cloth used to wrap the dead. Since the fourteenth century, it’s been more commonly known as a shroud. The shroud before you is the most studied and controversial religious artifact in the world,” Bondurant said, this time with real reverence. “In fact, the study of this relic alone has gained so much attention in the last century that a branch of science—sindonology—has been named for it.”

  He continued. “According to believers, the Shroud is the burial cloth that was wrapped around the body of Jesus of Nazareth as he was laid to rest in his tomb. It is referenced in all four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

  “Look closely,” he said. “The remarkable image you see in the midsection of the linen cloth, at center, is purported to be the face of the Son of God. While the Catholic Church has never officially accepted or rejected the Shroud as the actual burial cloth of Christ, numerous popes have taken its authenticity for granted. In 1958, Pope Pius XII gave his blessing to the image of the face shown here as that of Jesus Christ. You will find this face engraved on medals and jewelry throughout the Christian world. Some of you may wear it now. For over four hundred years, this burial shroud has been kept in the Royal Chapel of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin. Millions of visitors, including Pope John Paul II and your Pope Augustine, have made pilgrimages to Turin to see firsthand what their predecessors deemed to be the true image of the face of Jesus Christ.”

  “Dr. Bondurant,” said Kelso from the front row, “I’m sure at this point you are going to explain why you believe it’s a forgery. But I have to say that the image, the face shown here, looks a lot like Christ.”

  “Yes,” Bondurant said. “Your own preconceived notion of Christ. That’s exactly what the medieval artist who forged it wanted you to believe. But believe me when I tell you there are no definitive records in existence referencing the Shroud before the fourteenth century. None. Today, there are seven different churches spread from Italy to France, all which claim to have a piece of the Shroud.

  “Now,” he said as he paced back and forth, “how is that possible? I could not put it better than Calvin, the French theologian, a favorite of Father Cleary’s whom I’m sure you will study. In his Treatise on Relics in 1543, he said, and I quote: ‘How is it possible that those sacred historians, who carefully related all the miracles that took place at Christ’s death, should have omitted to mention one so remarkable as the likeness of the body of our Lord remaining on its wrapping sheet?’

  “Calvin also wrote,” Bondurant continued, “that anyone who peddled the Shroud as being authentic should be ‘convicted of falsehood and deceit.’ ”

  He moved back toward his chair quietly, folded his arms, and gazed out at the students sitting in rapt attention as they studied the glowing ghostlike image.

  A full minute went by before the silence was broken. The student with the beret removed it, tossed her hair back, and spoke.

  “Dr. Bondurant, this looks as real as it gets,” she said. “Like it was painted by an angel or something.”

  “Yes,” he responded. “I have to confess that it does. What is its true origin? We know that it was first put on display in the small French village of Lirey in the year 1356. Some claim it is actually the work of Leonardo da Vinci. That would make it a masterpiece, wouldn’t it?”

  “You mean to say this could be a painting?” a student asked.

  “Possibly,” he responded. “Some historians also say that it is the work of a talented but admitted forger and murderer. Church documents from the year 1390 tell us that a memo was written from Bishop Pierre d’Arcis to Antipope Clement VII proclaiming that the Shroud was a forgery and that the artist had confessed.”

  “What do you believe?” Kelso asked.

  “For me,” Bondurant responded dryly, “it’s not a matter of belief. It’s not a matter of faith. Or better put, I guess you could say I put my faith where it belongs—in science. You may know me as an author, but my first love is science. I know that over thirty years ago, a team of experts was allowed to examine the Shroud up close. They were able to take with them small samples of linen cut from the Shroud. And the radiocarbon dating tests they performed on those samples stated conclusively that the Shroud’s fabrication lies somewhere between the years 1260 and 1390.”

  “That’s too bad,” a student noted. “It is just magnificent.”

  “Yes,” Bondurant replied as he stared intently into the image of the face that beamed down on him. “A magnificent fake.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Rome, Italy—The Vatican

  March 2014

  Domenika Jozef spoke with her usual confidence but with precisely the amount of measured respect required of a senior adviser in disagreement with the pope.

  “Holy Father, I believe this is a grave mistake,” she said as she tried to mask her frustration. She folded her hands on the table and stared up at the massive crystal chandeliers in the pontiff’s spectacular study. Every wall was adorned with priceless paintings as old as the Renaissance itself. She tried to ignore the icy stare of the red-cassocked cardinal beside the Holy Father.

  “Ms. Jozef, as was explained to you earlier this morning,” Cardinal Ponti interrupted brusquely, “His Holiness has reached a decision on this matter, and the time has come to—”

  “Your Eminence, I realize that as secretary to His Holiness, your view carries great weight,” she interrupted. “But when this advice was proffered to the Holy Father following your meeting of the cardinals last week, there was not a single adviser present who has experience in public relations. I have advised the Vatican on policy matters of extraordinary sensitivity to the media for several years now and have never
—”

  “Ms. Jozef!” Cardinal Ponti’s voice elevated in volume even more quickly than he rose from the ornate golden chair he had been sitting in. “Your guidance on this matter has been appreciated, but the Holy Father has spoken,” he said with a certain finality. “Meus Deus, is mulier exertus meus patientia!”

  My God, this woman tries my patience, Domenika quickly translated in silence. Obviously Ponti had forgotten she was fluent in eight languages, including Latin and ancient Aramaic.

  Pope Augustine sighed heavily and closed his weary eyes for a moment. He clasped his large, aging hands together, revealing the famous golden Fisherman’s Ring, which signified his succession from Saint Peter, founder of the Church and a fisherman by trade. The pope leaned forward slowly and rested against the massive antique mahogany table that appeared to be as old as Rome itself.

  “Domenika,” he said as his rich voice filled the resplendent room, “this is not a decision that I have made lightly. I have considered the question for several days and have given the matter much prayer. This path is unconventional, I confess. But I believe the gift brought to us by the grace of God in the heroic hands of Padre Parenti must be handled this way.”

  Domenika detected from Father Parenti’s expression that the priest could not believe his ears. She watched as the little priest glued his eyes to the gilded portraits of previous pontiffs that surrounded them in order to avoid the furious bulging eyes of Father Barsanti. The prefect, afflicted with Graves’ disease, which produced his bug-like eyes, could barely contain his disgust at Parenti’s good fortune. He had cringed when the Holy Father mentioned the little priest by name.

  The pope grasped the ancient codex on the table in front of him, locked eyes with Parenti, and held the codex to his heart.

  “There has never been a gift of greater salvation for so many,” he proclaimed, making the sign of the cross with the book he now held with outstretched arms. “But first, the world must be readied.”

  It was not an exaggeration, Domenika thought. It would always be a mystery why the codex had been discovered by the pitiful priest. If not for his accident, it could have rested in obscurity for centuries. Still, she had to wonder if the hand of God was in his find. It was too random and too astonishing that out of all the obscure books in the library not touched by human hands in hundreds of years, this one was discovered. Miraculous, she thought.

  In the eyes of Vatican experts, the contents of the book itself were more valuable than any holy relic ever discovered. The title of the sixty-four pages of delicate papyrus in ancient Greek text was etched in gold leaf with the mind-numbing words Revelation of the Shroud. Domenika had been assured it was the only book of its kind in existence. Dated to the year AD 49, its contents had been translated from Greek and studied meticulously by the pope’s most trusted historians since its discovery by Parenti weeks earlier. After their intense examination, there was no question the book the pontiff held before them proved beyond all doubt the authenticity of the burial cloth, the Holy Shroud of Jesus Christ. With the Shroud’s legitimacy now confirmed through the Revelation of the Shroud, a remarkable text and the first of its kind, the famous burial cloth in Turin took its place as the earliest and most credible historical evidence in existence detailing the last, tortured hours of Jesus Christ.

  “Every precious page of this document, every word set forth here, provides all believers with a renewed foundation of faith, a bridge between the spiritual and the worldly greater than mankind has ever known,” the pope pronounced, his aged hands visibly shaking as he held the book before them.

  The Shroud of Turin, the burial cloth referenced by the Gospel of Mark, had been revered by previous popes and the faithful as the most sacred of relics since it was first discovered and gifted to the Catholic Church in the late fourteenth century. It had been kept under constant guard in the Royal Chapel of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy, for over six hundred years. Although derided as a fake by scientific experts and nonbelievers for decades, it had served as a source of inspiration to countless Christians for centuries. A simple herringbone twill cloth that measured fourteen feet three inches long by three feet seven inches wide, it revealed from top to bottom a faint, mysteriously lifelike image of a naked man bearing the markings of a body that had suffered a brutal death. Indeed, not just any death but a crucifixion that involved the precise torture and agony—the Passion—experienced by Jesus of Nazareth as documented in the Scriptures. The Shroud was said to be true evidence of the ultimate sacrifice of God’s Son sent to absolve the sin of all men, and a reminder of the eventual death and resurrection of mankind.

  The purported documentation of the authenticity of Jesus’s burial cloth as contained in the Revelation of the Shroud was comprehensive and complete. As written, it provided an unmistakable guide to the artifact that had been resting in Turin for centuries. Much of it read like an ancient coroner’s report. There was the revelation that the cloth had first been secreted by Thaddeus Jude to Edessa, one of the first Christian communities established along the Silk Road between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. There were the extensive writings, page after page that described the burial cloth in detail that only the most intrusive inspection of the Shroud itself could reveal. There was the exact match between the text and the actual measurements of the relic’s length and width recorded in the modern day. A detailed description of the markings that appeared on the cloth, from the small cuts surrounding the image’s forehead, presumably formed by a crown of thorns, to the puncture wounds clearly visible on the wrists and feet, revealed the certain signs of a brutal and bloody crucifixion. Remarkably enough, the text also revealed a page of testimony that appeared to be taken directly from Joseph of Arimathea. In the account, he described his meticulous wrapping of the body of Jesus in “large strips of linen cloth” before he laid him to rest in his tomb in Jerusalem.

  There were also extraordinary illustrations containing crude but accurate similarities to the markings on the Shroud. Sketches of a body in repose were included with indicators pointing to gouges in the torso. These matched perfectly with the Shroud’s present image that bore the signs of the lancing of Christ’s side when, according to the Bible, a Roman soldier’s spear had been used to hasten his death. References to the numerous wounds across the back and legs of the image were included, denoting the marks associated with a Roman flagrum, a tasseled, whiplike instrument of torture. And dark, vein-like streaks that appeared up and down the image’s arms were illustrated, referencing what looked to be a pattern of blood trickling from punctured wrists.

  Importantly, there was also a date, extremely rare for a text of this age: the title page was clearly inscribed at the bottom with the inscription “8 Claudius.” This provided a reference to the ancient Coptic “year of indication” denoting the eighth year of rule of the Roman emperor Claudius, who reigned between AD 41 and AD 54. It placed the writing of the Revelation of the Shroud at precisely AD 49, approximately fifteen years following historical estimates of the death of Jesus Christ.

  The sole piece of inquiry that the pope’s experts had yet to resolve in their meticulous examination of the codex was the location of an item that appeared to belong in the tie’pi, the Greek word for “pocket.” Apparently, a small compartment had been carefully sewn into the inside cover of the codex marked only by two words—hagios kalumma, which meant “holy veil.” Yet no such veil was found inside the pouch when the pope’s experts examined it. Domenika had been told that this lost piece of the codex had preoccupied the pope for days. Was it the true “Veronica’s Veil,” the very cloth that had touched the face of Christ, that had been preserved inside the sacred book? She knew that several churches throughout Europe claimed to possess the venerated relic. That was evidence enough to her that the real veil had likely vanished centuries ago.

  “Father Parenti, our hero, our discoverer!” the pope exclaimed as he set the codex on the table before them and delicately opened its cover to r
eveal the empty pocket where the veil likely once rested. The pontiff shook his head.

  “I presume you found no other items related to our magnificent codex during your mishap? No other such things?”

  Parenti closed his eyes tight and only shook his head to signal an emphatic no.

  “Speak up! Speak up!” Barsanti cried out. The prefect quickly stood up. “You are to address the Holy Father with abject veneration!”

  Domenika looked down at the little priest, who sat motionless, able only to shake his head in the negative again. All the while, Parenti seemed to fidget with something buried deep inside his pants. The prefect appeared ready to leap across the table to strike and even strip-search the little priest for his insolence, but she could see the pope would have none of it. The pontiff raised his hand to silence the red-faced Barsanti, whose every ounce of blood appeared ready to burst forth from his ballooning eyes.

  “Not even a scrap of material of any kind that might have fallen free? And not a clue as to where to find this missing veil?” the pope asked once more.

  Parenti took a long, deep breath, one Domenika thought might be his last, given how anxious he appeared to be.

  “Not a scrap,” Parenti managed to croak from somewhere deep inside his tiny chest.

  Even without the holy veil, the historical and religious significance of Father Parenti’s accidental discovery of the codex were certain to stun the world. The revelation of the text’s existence would reinforce the faith of billions of Christians. Historians would rejoice over the first actual eyewitness account of the life and death of Jesus. Skeptics hung up on the hearsay nature of the Gospels would have to reexamine their bias, and many would convert.

  For Domenika, a devout cradle Catholic, the find was monumental. The news of its discovery could be the miracle she needed to obliterate from the public consciousness what had become known inside the walls of the Vatican as The Nightmare. The horrific and public narrative of child sexual abusers among its priestly order had cast a dark and growing shadow over the Catholic Church for a decade. Thousands of criminal and civil suits filed in courtrooms around the world had bankrupted parishes from Los Angeles to Warsaw. Front-page images of priests and bishops in handcuffs continued to tear at the very fabric of the Church, resulting in a near standstill of new vocations and a huge exodus of parishioners. While no revelation, document, relic, or miracle would ever completely eliminate the devastating consequences of the Church’s tolerance and cover-up of pedophilia, a miracle of this nature could at least divert the relentless attention to the issue. She prayed that the story of the discovery and authenticity of the Shroud, and the certain universal adoption of it as the most holy of Christian relics on earth, would provide a real cause for Christian celebration and a sorely needed facelift for the Church and its mission worldwide.