…Starting with a digression…
This post is going to be a rant about unqualified and ignorant clerics pontificating on the science of the Shroud, about which they know next to nothing, while more or less ignoring any spiritual or theological benefit that contemplation of it might bring, which you might think is exactly the thing they’d be more qualified to do. But before I start on that, in the interest of the forensic investigation of primary sources, I was trying to find out who first quoted my heading, in those exact words.
It is well known that Henry II, enraged by the activities of his erstwhile friend and appointee, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket, came out with this appeal at Christmas 1170, in Normandy, after hearing that some of his more supportive appointments had been excommunicated. Only of course he didn’t say it in English. And the only account of what he did say was written ten years later, by a clerk who wasn’t there, in a language he didn’t use.
Oh, dear. Still, it’s all we’ve got, and this is what it says:
“Inertes ac miseros homines enutrivi et eresi in regno meo, qui nec fidem ferunt domino suo, quem a plebeo quodam clerico tam probose patiuntur illudi.”
“I have reared and raised unhelpful and miserable men in my kingdom, who bear no loyalty to their lord, whom they allow to be mocked so shamefully by a low-born cleric.”
Edward Grim’s account of the Life of Thomas Becket has not, as far as I know, been fully translated into English, but these words have been, in various ways, nearly all of them more in terms of a hopeful wish than the disgusted comment we read here, and mostly translating “plebeo” as meddlesome or troublesome instead of the royal slur on Becket’s lowly birth that the Latin implies. “Turbulent” however, seems to have been invented by Charlotte Mary Yonge, a minor novelist of the late 19th century, and also the author of a ‘Young Folk’s History of England’ (c.1875), an immensely popular primary history which includes the passage:
“Henry exclaimed in passion, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”
I think this is the first instance of these exact words.
…Now that we’ve got that out of the way…
Joe Marino, the most diligent Shroud-watcher I know, posts details of all the podcasts, and videos and of many other publications concerning the Shroud, and some of the most assiduous commenters are ministers of one Christian Church or another, from Southern Baptists to Roman Catholics. Almost to a man, they concentrate entirely on claims of authenticity, and minimally, if at all, on whether the cloth has any spiritual value. What’s more, they are all fairly hazily informed on the alleged historical and scientific basis for their convictions, and confidently make all sorts of statements that make knowledgeable authenticists cringe, and knowledgeable non-authenticists laugh out loud.
The latest proponent, so far, of this litany of misinformation, is Fr Chris Alar, in a podcast with Gary Michuta on Virgin Most Powerful Radio. His chief faux pas are that there was pollen on the Shroud from plants which became extinct in the first century, that the nails were unequivocally driven through the palms of the hands, and that it was normal practice for the Jews to keep the eyes of their dead shut using coins.
I have already given short shrift to a number of incompetent ‘Shroud experts’ who ought to know better (see “Caveat Auditor”), but this particular beef is against clerics who probably ought not to know better, but equally, would do better not to attempt to pontificate on a subject about which they know so little. The service of God is in the saving of souls, not on the forensic justification of relics, and if it is claimed that the latter could lead to the former, then it is a pity that in the vast majority of these broadcasts, the connection is not made at all, and if it is, is a mere mention at the end rather than an important part of the production. At the beginning of his podcast, Fr Alar says that belief in the authenticity of the Shroud is largely a matter of faith, and then spends the next half hour or so refuting his own statement by attempting to demonstrate it scientifically.
And what is the source of all this misinformation? Occasionally a book or two is mentioned (particularly Kenneth Stevenson and Gary Habermas’s Verdict on the Shroud, although Fr Alar’s mention of extinct plants seems to come from Frank Tribbe’s Portrait of Jesus), but the two main fall guys are the Magis Centre in Los Angeles, which is a disseminator rather than a primary source, and the Turin Shroud Centre in Colorado Springs, which, as it is headed by John Jackson, the prime mover of STuRP, ought to be as authoritative as it is possible to be.
Unfortunately neither of these institutions appears much troubled by either scientific or historical accuracy, and indeed, seem blissfully happy to believe and propagate completely contradictory ideas, provided there is anything in them at all that supports their agenda. As far as I know they do nothing to correct the errors propagated, deliberately or inadvertently, on their behalf. This is a two-edged sword. Their very prominence in the Shroud world sets them up as targets for further investigation, and being found wanting, disbelief in the relic’s authenticity is as readily spread as credibility.
If you want the Science of the Shroud, read what the Scientists wrote, not what well-meaning but misinformed ministers think they wrote, and if you want History read Historians. Most of the primary research on the Shroud is published, mostly at, or accessible from, shroud.com, but it seems that not many even of our chiefest publicists have troubled to read it.
[Parenthesis…
A typical, and topical, example of this is in the frequent assertion that statisticians have recently derived evidence which “denies the medieval dating of 1988” (according to some blurb for an Italian podcast (TV2000) on Tuesday 29 September). In fact, of course, none of the statisticians have done any such thing. Quite the reverse.
Remi van Haelst concluded that: “Any date between those limits 504-859 [1180 – 1430] can be the TRUE date.”
Riani and Atkinson said: “Our results indicate that, for whatever reasons, the structure of the TS is more complicated than that of the three fabrics with which it was compared.”
Casabianca agrees that: “Our statistical results do not imply that the medieval hypothesis of the age of the tested sample should be ruled out.”
And most recently, di Lazzaro and Schwalbe suggest that: “We find that amounts of this material [ricinoleic acid, an example of a kind of contamination which would have been removed by Oxford’s cleaning methods but not by Zurich or Arizona] in the areal density range 1.5–2.5 mg/cm2 may be sufficient to bring the results of Damon et al. (1989) for Sample #1 into agreement.”
… parenthesis ends.]
But supposing you don’t want Science or History? Supposing you want theology, philosophy or the relevance of the Shroud to Christian belief? Supposing you go to a minister for advice on the meaning of the Shroud today? Sadly, you’ll be hard pushed to find one who can say anything about it. I recommend the words of Pope John-Paul II on 24 May 1998, Pope Benedict XVI on 2 May 2010, and Pope Francis on 11 April 2020, but apart from them, there’s precious little else.