Viral stories this week reported on a “new” study that points to scientific research confirming the Shroud of Turin, the purported burial cloth of Jesus Christ, does indeed date back 2,000 years, which coincides with Our Lord’s life and Crucifixion. 

A closer look reveals that this research was actually from a 2022 study done by Italian scientist Liberato De Caro of Italy’s Institute of Crystallography of the National Research Council in Bari. 

The Register was one of the first outlets to report De Caro’s findings. In April 2022, Edward Pentin discussed the peer-reviewed findings that used X-ray methodology to determine the age of the Shroud’s fibers with the scientist himself. 

With research beginning in 2019 and delayed by the pandemic, De Caro told the Register, “We finally applied the new X-ray dating technique to a sample of the Shroud of Turin, and the findings of the research were published in the international journal Heritage after about a month of preparation and revision, during which our work was evaluated and peer reviewed by three other independent experts and the journal’s editor.”

De Caro noted that the research was done in the X-ray laboratories of the Institutes of Crystallography of the National Council of Research, “in collaboration with Professor G. Fanti of the University of Padua.”

Fanti made headlines this week about his latest research conducted earlier this summer. The New York Post reported that the study “focused on blood stains and ‘scourge marks’ found on the shroud that allude to Christ’s death by being nailed to a cross — a common method of execution by the Romans at his time in 33 AD.”

“The high percentage of creatinine found in [the sticky tape samples], may be explained, especially during Jesus' last hour before dying on the cross, by a reduced blood flow to the kidneys also caused by hypovolemia and by severe dehydration,” the study reads.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, which first broke the story, Fanti said, “I would refer to Type A blood as that which came out of the corpse and therefore postmortem blood; it consists of microcytes which indicate the respiratory suffering of Jesus on the cross.”

In 2021, the Shroud of Turin was livestreamed so millions around the globe could venerate it virtually. Timed to take place on Holy Saturday when Catholics contemplate the pain and suffering of our Lord that fateful Good Friday, the Shroud does give us insights into the physicality of Christ—and his immense suffering. As Jim Graves wrote in 2021: 

“What the shroud tells us of Christ’s death is that he endured the worst form of torture of which evil minds could conceive. His death was extremely brutal. His right eye is swollen almost shut, his nose is deviated, both eyebrows are swollen, and there are several other lacerations on his cheeks, all as a result of a severe beating. His chest, shoulders, back, buttocks and legs are covered with dumbbell-shaped cuts or scourge marks.”

Register Europe Correspondent Solène Tadié reported in 2022 on a new book that looked into the “definitive truth” of the Shroud of Turin. “It is no longer possible to say that it is a medieval cloth, nor that it could probably be the Jesus’ Shroud,” French historian Jean-Christian Petitfils told the Register. “No, its authenticity can no longer be disputed.” 

Recent research reported earlier in the year by James Day unearthed a connection between the Shroud of Turin and the Holy Grail, the purported cup used by Christ at the Last Supper. 

“In his book, The Holy Grail and the Shroud of Christ, Noel Currer-Briggs subscribed to the hypothesis that the mandylion and Shroud of Turin are one and the same. He connects the Holy Face of Laon to a badly preserved mandylion fresco in Serbia’s Gradac Monastery, built between 1277 and 1282 by the queen consort of Serbia, Helen of Anjou, mother of King Stefan Uroš II Milutin. Currer-Briggs specifically points out the similar trellis or lattice shapes on that mosaic as also visible on the Laon icon. “The term lattice or trellis is synonymous with grid or grill, and they all derive from the medieval French word ‘greil’ or ‘greille.’” For Currer-Briggs, this was evidence of a decorative grill behind which was the Shroud, folded in such a way as to only reveal the face.”

Just last year, a documentary treated the mystery of the Shroud of Turin as a true-crime detective drama featuring the one and only Jesuit Father Robert Spitzer, one of EWTN’s most popular program hosts. The movie focuses not only on the suffering of Christ and the 72-hour window of time that our dear Jesus would’ve been cocooned inside the cloth, but also on the origins of some of the pollen fossils found on the Shroud. As Register Editor in Chief Shannon Mullen reported ahead of the film’s release:

“Another compelling finding is that most of the pollen fossils left on the shroud come from northern Judea, not France or other places where the cloth is known to have been over the past 700 years.”

“So, it has to be much older,” reasoned Father Spitzer during a Q&A held on-site at the Napa Institute’s summer conference last year. 

“Based on his research over the years, Father Spitzer is convinced of the shroud’s authenticity. He subscribes to the theory that ‘low-temperature spontaneous nuclear degeneration’ of every cell in the crucified man's body created an incredibly intense burst of radiation that left behind physical evidence of the Resurrection,” Mullen wrote for Catholic News Agency. 

It’s perfect timing to delve even deeper into this mystery as Father Spitzer has just published a new book with Ignatius Press entitled Christ, Science, and Reason: What We Can Know About Jesus, Mary, and Miracles. The president of the Magis Center of Reason and Faith takes on the Shroud from a strictly scientific perspective looking at both the Passion and Resurrection. 

Speaking to Fox News this week regarding the mystery of the Shroud, Bishop Robert Barron reminded Catholics, “Our faith in Christ's resurrection is in no way dependent on the Shroud but its uncanny power to capture our attention and many other mysteries have strengthened the faith of many."

And as Pope Benedict XVI venerated the Shroud on Holy Saturday In 2010, he invited us all to contemplate how this garment speaks: 

“It speaks with blood, and blood is life! The Shroud is an Icon written in blood; the blood of a man who was scourged, crowned with thorns, crucified and whose right side was pierced. The Image impressed upon the Shroud is that of a dead man, but the blood speaks of his life. Every trace of blood speaks of love and of life. Especially that huge stain near his rib, made by the blood and water that flowed copiously from a great wound inflicted by the tip of a Roman spear. That blood and that water speak of life. It is like a spring that murmurs in the silence, and we can hear it.”