HOMEPAGE for this issue: May 9, 2012 //
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GUEST COLUMNISTS:

"Giving voice to foster children: Our story"
By David and Laurie Delphia

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Shroud of Turin and faith

With reference to the Nun of the Above quiz in the April 18 Denver Catholic Register.

The Shroud of Turin does not “prove” anything about Resurrection, only that someone was buried. This is not an article of faith and we are not obliged to believe in it, any more than we must believe in the miracles at Lourdes and so many other wonderful things in the Church. Surely it is better to have Jesus’ own words in the Gospels as the foundation of our belief in the Resurrection.

This quiz is a lot of fun and most enjoyable. The Register is a great newspaper and fills a real need.

Thank you – God bless you,

Patricia M.F. Kelly
Loveland

A note from Peter Westhoff:

Clearly,  Patricia Kelly and I are on the same side, so this is a clarification, not an argument against her thesis.

The quiz question used “evidence” not “proof” because the Shroud of Turin cannot prove the Resurrection any more than the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe can prove the intercessory power of Mary, but both can be used as evidence of these truths.  Also, the question limited itself to the consideration of physical evidence.

People who saw Jesus resurrected had physical proof of the resurrection.  By grace we profess the Resurrection based on the testimony of the Evangelists and the Church’s teaching.

Though one need not accept the shroud as Christ’s burial cloth, we should consider the respect the Church gives it.  Science shows it is more than a generic burial cloth. 

The empirical data shows a correspondence between Christ’s passion and the image on the shroud.  Science cannot explain the image’s existence.  Also,  evidence of the shroud’s existence from the time of Jesus is strong.