The Shroud of Turin has recently come into the news again because a team of scientists, using a process called wide-angle X-ray scattering, were able to date the linen used to make it back to the first century, by comparing it to a known sample of first century linen.

While the first 10 years of my education were in Catholic schools, I don't ever remember any of the Sisters or Brothers mentioning the Shroud. It wasn't until 1971, after I had been involved in photography for a few years, that I read an article about the Shroud in a photography magazine, and that got me interested.

Secondo Pia, the amateur photographer who first photographed the Shroud in Turin, Italy in 1898 found, when he developed his glass plate negative, that it produced a positive image on the plate, suggesting that the Shroud, in photographic terms, bore a negative image.

The authenticity of the Shroud has been debated for a long time, but in all these years, even centuries, no one has been able to explain it adequately or duplicate it. My belief, for more than 30 years, has been that the image was formed by the energy released from Jesus' resurrection, and NO ONE HAS BEEN, OR IS CAPABLE OF, DUPLICATING THAT.

The Shroud says, so you don't believe? Then explain this why don't you. And no one has, as smart as the skeptics think they are.

I see the Shroud as a gift, in physical form, for a time such as ours, when science and sophistication have made a simple faith almost impossible for a large part of an educated populace.

But that said, the Shroud is not the object of my faith but it certainly bolsters it a bit, as infrequently as it is brought to mind.

SkyHoop