The Smoking Gun

An essay in fiction inspired by an idea from Joe Marino.

2025. The first year of the pontificate of the controversially named Pope Christopher has been marked by a succession of sweeping changes in the Catholic Church, stimulating enthusiasm and dismay in almost equal measure. Some of his reforms have followed precipitately from his predecessor’s ‘Synod of Synodality’ such as the opening of the first seminary for the preparation of women for the priesthood, and the purging of over a third of the Vatican civil service, while others seem to have stemmed from the pragmatism of Pope Benedict XVI, such as the bold announcement in his first encyclical that the church has nothing to fear from science, which led to the famous headline in the Daily Mail: “Pope denies Christ is the Son of God.” Then, to the excited anticipation of many, it was learned that following the ostentation in May, the Pope had instructed the President of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences to establish a commission to investigate the claim that the Shroud of Turin was an authentic relic, to include a battery of new chemical and physical tests, historical investigations, and a full radiocarbon analysis. The investigations were to be carried out openly, with no secrecy, the full publication of all the results, and the willing participation of the members in discussion forums with their peers, and with the public. Finally, it can be said, there seems to be general consensus among all but the most hardened extremists, that the question of the authenticity of the Shroud has been settled.

Remarkably the first piece of conclusive evidence was published even before the Shroud was exhibited, as the result of an entirely serendipitous discovery during the excavation of the projected trans-Rome subway, due to be completed in 2030. Although comprehensive archaeological surveys had been carried out beforehand, engineers were amazed to break into a wholly unexpected catacomb, which was richly decorated with 5th century murals, including a large painting of an angel, flanked by saints presumed to be Peter and John, holding up a long cloth bearing an unmistakeable likeness to the Shroud, with two figures of the naked Jesus, front and back, in a pale sepia colour. In front of it kneel the Virgin Mary and other women, assumed to be the Holy Women visiting the tomb on Easter Sunday morning.

Skeptic Hugh Farey commented that although this was not decisive, it was good evidence that either the Shroud of Turin was in existence in the 5th century – and by implication was probably authentic – or it was a copy of it. He looked forward to the new radiocarbon date.

The first scientific paper to be published involved a spectrographic and isotopic examination of eight minute pieces of limestone, extracted using microforceps from the knee of the ventral image, and samples from several places around the world, including France, Italy, Israel, India, Japan, Canada and Mexico. All eight fragments from the Shroud were spectrographically and isotopically remarkably similar to the Israeli sample, collected from the Jerusalem area, and clearly different from all of the rest.

Hugh Farey agreed that, with the previous historical discovery, this practically confirmed that the Shroud was authentic. But that, he explained, was how science worked, refining its models in the light of new evidence. For years it had seemed to him that the evidence showed a medieval origin, but these new findings had tipped the balance of probability the other way.

Next came the results of FTIR scans across the width of the cloth in four places, the ventral chest and calves, the back just below the shoulder blades, and the hips, avoiding bloodstains. Elements identified and quantified included iron, calcium and strontium, all of which were found in similar uniform proportions across the widths examined, implying that none of these elements were significant components of the chromophore.

The FTIR scans were matched to samples of threads, each about 1cm long, from the same places, which were analysed in various ways. Lengths of less than a millimetre were cut off and splayed out so that the number of fibres (from 145 – 252), and the proportion of cotton to linen (from 5% to 9%) in each thread could be counted. Sub-samples were also chemically analysed for the presence of protein, none of which was identified.

Farey, whose opinion on the Shroud seems to have been sought a great deal more now than it ever has been before, agreed that this was a far more comprehensive collection of evidence of the Shroud not being in any sense a painting – rubbing, pouncing, printing, photography or anything else – than had previously been collected, and that he could no longer support a medieval provenance under the same paradigm as he had been using.

The final nail in the coffin of the medieval forgery hypothesis came from the new radiocarbon results. Sections of thread were taken from numerous places all over the Shroud, both image and non-image areas, as well as charred fragments removed in 2002, and examined by specialised archaeological dating laboratories around the world, including Turin, Frankfurt, Tokyo and Stockholm, as well as Oxford and Arizona which, although pre-eminent in the field, were felt to be tainted by history. Overwhelmingly the results have pointed to an ancient origin for the Shroud, specifically the year 25 AD, with a five-year margin of error.

“Fine,” said Farey. “I now think the Shroud is conclusively authentic. And I’m not to going to start muttering about frauds, or making vague statements about carbon dating ‘often being wrong.’ It wasn’t in 1988, and it isn’t now, although it looks as if some version of Joe Marino’s re-weaving hypothesis did result in newer material being dated the first time round. At least the neutron enrichment hypothesis has been eliminated. And being authentic, I now think it was a cloth that wrapped the body of Jesus in the tomb, and not, say, a different first century crucifixion victim. Will I lose interest in it? Certainly not. There is much to learn from it, and much still to discover. In particular, we still don’t know how the image formed, and the early history seems even more confused than it was before. It may be that the Shroud went more or less directly from Jerusalem to Rome, where it did not leave before being given to the chapel at Lirey; we just don’t know.”

Asked about the Sudarium of Oviedo, Farey replied, “I’m sorry if this sounds churlish, but as I find no evidence sufficient to challenge its 7th century radiocarbon date, I’m going to stick to that. Similarly, although I accept that the Shroud is authentic, I still don’t think the Pray Codex depicts it, and I still don’t think it is the same as the Image of Edessa. The new evidence must not be thought of as a blanket justification of every hypothesis ever put forward to defend the authenticist point of view.”

In spite of the latest findings, the majority of those whose who previously rejected the authenticity of the Shroud remain unconvinced. Their objections are based on the translation of the Gospel of St John which renders the word othonia as “strips” of linen, and on a visceral rejection of anything the Catholic Church supports. “Faith beats Science,” is their mantra, and their “Faith” lies entirely in the Authorised Version, it seems.

[Author’s note: I originally wrote two versions of this story, both remarkably similar, except that the historical discovery was that the Shroud was made for the Easter liturgy in a large European cathedral, and the scientific findings included no Israeli limestone, an increase in iron and protein over the image area, and a radiocarbon date of 1320. This seems to me a more likely scenario. However, although I very much enjoyed imagining Joe Marino’s comments on these discoveries, I did not feel sufficiently sure of them to publish them!]