Reports about recent scientific findings that appear to support the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin garnered widespread coverage in secular media outlets last month. 

But none of those media accounts delved into this central question: Assuming the image visible on the fabric of the shroud really is that of the Crucified Christ — supernaturally imprinted there by Jesus himself, as he lay in the tomb between his crucifixion on Good Friday and his resurrection on the first Easter Sunday — why did the Son of God choose to leave behind this scientifically verifiable evidence of his death on the cross? 

The answer could be that even though the physical sciences would not develop for another 2,000 years to the point where they could conclusively authenticate the shroud, Jesus already knew that a day was coming when this kind of evidence would be the only way to confirm his resurrected reality to many of the souls who live in the rationalistic and materialistic cultures of today. 

Recent media accounts centered on a pair of findings. The first involves research, initially published in 2022, that indicates the shroud is indeed around 2,000 years old and not merely a few hundred years old, as suggested by research conducted in 1988 using a less reliable method of dating the cloth’s age.  

That 1988 research was seized upon by skeptics as definitive proof that the shroud was a medieval forgery — even though by that time other scientific evidence, unrelated to the cloth’s dating, persuasively pointed toward the conclusion that the shroud is indeed Jesus’ burial cloth. Perhaps the most powerful evidence is the origin of the image imprinted there: According to researchers, it was caused by an inexplicable, superintense burst of ultraviolet radiation.  

The second finding is based on new research into the stains visible on the shroud, in places where it would have come into touch with Christ’s wounded head and body. This research concluded these markings are indeed bloodstains. More remarkably, detailed analysis of the bloodstains’ composition disclosed the presence of particular compounds that correspond closely with how the body of Jesus would have reacted to the grievous injuries that were inflicted on him, according to the biblical account of his passion. 

As always, shroud skeptics have rushed to debunk this new research, attempting to indirectly sidestep the latest findings by citing earlier and less sophisticated experiments that didn’t appear to support the shroud’s authenticity.  

It’s not the purpose of this editorial to delve further into the specifics of this debate. And it should be noted that the Church itself has never offered a definitive judgment about the shroud’s authenticity, preferring instead to invite more scientific investigations into this still-unsettled question. 

But it’s also worth noting that in our increasingly irreligious age, a multitude of people can accept only the judgment of the physical sciences, and not merely when it comes to judging the shroud’s authenticity. They look to the natural sciences as the highest authority regarding every aspect of human existence. 

It should also be pointed out that the people who most passionately insist the shroud is a fraud, no matter what evidence to the contrary comes forward, are completely unscientific themselves. They operate from the premise that science has already proved the nonexistence of God and that, therefore, all supernatural claims about the burial cloth must be bunk. Yet in reality the physical sciences don’t address the existence of God at all. They investigate the mechanics of our created universe, not the mechanism by which it was created in the first place.  

In earlier eras, scientific evidence was neither available nor required by the majority of people to believe in the truth of physical miracles like the image imprinted on the shroud; to believe in the deeper truth that God is responsible for these miracles; and to believe in the deepest truth of all about Jesus — that the Son of God walked on our Earth 2,000 years ago and suffered and died here on our behalf, for the salvation of our eternal souls.  

But that doesn’t mean that these previous generations had no good evidence of miracles. Not at all. As G.K. Chesterton pointed out in his 1908 “spiritual autobiography” Orthodoxy, there has always been abundant historical evidence that miracles occur; it’s only our own skeptical era that refuses to accept that kind of evidence as valid. 

Perhaps this is why, in the case of the shroud, so much scientific evidence now is emerging to support the centuries-old belief that it is the actual burial cloth of humanity’s Lord and Savior. Perhaps Jesus himself is gently saying to these skeptics of today, “I realize that, due to the crippled collective lack of faith that afflicts you, you are simply unable to accept any other kind of evidence. Please then take a look at these research findings, delivered via the science that you worship in place of me, and allow them to open your eyes to the Way and the Truth of eternal Life.”