Nora Creech is a lecturer on the history, science, and pastoral implications of the Shroud of Turin, which many believe to be the burial cloth of Christ. Her educational background includes earning a Master of Arts degree in Faith and Culture from the University of St. Thomas in Houston, and completing a year-long course in Shroud studies offered online by the Pontifical University, Regina Apostolorum in Rome. She has consulted with a variety of organizations to develop and expand Shroud exhibits, is on the board of directors of the Shroud Center of Southern California, is a founding member of the National Holy Shroud Exhibit and is North American representative for Othonia, which promotes the Shroud around the globe.
Her current activities include working with the Shroud Center to present “The Holy Shroud, the Divine Mercy Image and Eucharistic Miracles” in the Christ Cathedral Arboretum at the Diocese of Orange’s Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove. Tickets to the April 6th event, which begins at 7:00pm, are free. Speakers at the event include Fr. Robert Spitzer, SJ, who will give a scientific presentation on the Shroud, and Adriana Acutis, the aunt of Blessed Carlo Acutis.
As Catholics prepare for Holy Week and the celebration of Easter, Mrs. Creech offered CWR readers an overview of the Shroud of Turin and its history, and how it can offer to us a better understanding and appreciation of the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ.
CWR: Please give us a brief overview of the Shroud of Turin.
Nora Creech: The Shroud of Turin is a linen cloth that is over 14 feet long and 3 feet wide. It has been conserved in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy since 1578, so that is why it is called “The Shroud of Turin”. It is blood-soaked, water-stained, burned and patched but most importantly, it holds the very mysterious image of a man who has been scourged, crowned with thorns, crucified and pierced in the side. It has been venerated for centuries as the actual burial cloth of Jesus.
The history of the Shroud before 1349 is a subject of great interest among scholars. There are various theories about how the Shroud came to be owned by a French knight in a small village in Northern France and historians are still piecing together the whole story. It is undisputed that the Shroud was put on public display in this small town before ownership was transferred to the powerful Savoy family. The Savoys eventually transferred the cloth to their new capital in Turin, Italy and it has been there ever since (except during a short time it was in hiding during World War II).
The Shroud was transferred to the person of the living pope in 1983—at the time it was Pope St. John Paul II—when the last king of Italy, the deposed King Umberto II, died. Today, the Shroud is owned by Pope Francis, but its custodian is the Archbishop of Turin.
CWR: How can we be confident that it is authentic burial cloth of Christ?
Nora Creech: The Shroud is the most studied artifact in human history. A team of elite scientists extensively studied the Shroud in 1978 with the single goal of trying to understand how its image was formed. To this day, the image formation remains a mystery!
Not only does it contain a mysterious life-size image of the front and back of a crucified man, but the injuries to that man exactly match the Gospel accounts of the passion and death of Jesus of Nazareth. The correspondence is so great that Pope St. John Paul II called the Shroud “A Mirror of the Gospel” and Pope Benedict called it “the icon of Holy Saturday”.
CWR: Share the story of Secondo Pia photographing the Shroud in 1898 and how it led to modern studies of the Shroud. And, did 1988 carbon dating of the Shroud prove it was a “medieval hoax”?
Nora Creech: Modern study of the Shroud really began in 1898 when the Shroud was photographed for the first time. The photographer who was selected to produce the first photographic images of the Shroud was shocked when he was developing the photos in his darkened laboratory. What he saw emerge on his photographic plates was not the hard to view photo-negative image. Instead, the image was realistic and life-like—a completely surprising result! The photographer realized that the image he viewed with the naked eye acts like a photographic negative. When the negative is produced from that image—it acts like a positive—providing much more detail and life-like appearance to the “Man of the Shroud”.
This discovery of the photographic negativity of the Shroud ignited interest in the Shroud throughout the 20th century. Scientists from many different disciplines began to study the linen fabric to see what other mysteries were contained in the linen weave. In 1976, scientists discovered that the image intensity was related to the distance the cloth was to the body at the time the image was formed. So, areas that were touching the body such as the tip of the nose are darker than recessed areas such as the eye sockets. This amazing discovery led to the formation of the Shroud of Turin Research Project Team of 33 scientists who had 120 hours of access to the Shroud in 1978 to perform non-destructive testing to try to understand more about the image. They published their findings in 1981 in multiple peer-reviewed articles concluding with the statement that image remains a mystery and requires further study.
Unfortunately, most people have heard the 1988 news story that was reported around the world that radiocarbon testing “proved” that the Shroud was a medieval forgery since the radiocarbon tests dated the linen fabric’s manufacture to somewhere between 1260 and 1390. What has not been widely reported is that more recent analysis of the raw data from the radiocarbon dating tests indicate that “homogeneity is lacking in the data and that the procedure should be reconsidered”. This conclusion indicates that the previous testing performed on the Shroud is not accurate and new methods of dating the Shroud should be considered.
CWR: When we look at the image on the Shroud, what can we learn about the person of Jesus Christ and His sufferings?
Nora Creech: Some have called the Shroud “A Gospel Written in Blood.” The Scriptures do not describe in detail what Jesus endured during His Passion and death, but the Shroud reveals a great deal in very graphic detail. The scourging that is revealed by the wounds on the Shroud was very unrestrained resulting in wounds from the soles of the feet to the neck—on both the front and back of the naked body. Forensic scientists agree that the nail exit wound depicted in the wrist area on the Shroud is accurate to hold the weight of a man’s body secured to the wood of the cross—even though artistic convention depicts the nails through the palms of the hands. Jesus of Nazareth and the man of the Shroud are the ONLY people in history who were both crowned with thorns and crucified. The Shroud shows that Jesus carried a heavy wooden beam across his shoulders and his legs were not broken—all in full accordance with the Scriptures.
To me, the most important wound is Jesus’s pierced side. John’s Gospel is very emphatic about blood and water flowing from the side of Jesus after His death when the Roman centurion pierced His side. It wasn’t until the Shroud was photographed in 1978 using ultraviolet fluorescent photography that clear serum halos were detected around the bright red blood stains from this post-mortem wound. After Jesus died and His heart stopped pumping, the heavy red blood corpuscles separated from the clear blood serum. When the pericardial sack around the heart was punctured, these separated fluids poured forth—appearing to John like blood and water.
CWR: How can the Shroud help Catholics grow in their relationship with Christ?
Nora Creech: The Shroud is a visual representation of what Jesus endured for our salvation. It shows us in great detail WHAT Jesus suffered. To understand WHY He suffered, we have to turn to the Scriptures for understanding. Jesus said that He would lay down His life for His friends and that His blood would be poured out for many for the forgiveness of sin. We see this vividly depicted on the Shroud. We see His love literally poured out and flowing freely from His wounded side.
There is a complete harmony between the Shroud and the Scriptures. We can see with our eyes what we hear with our ears when we read about Jesus’s Passion. And even more, the scientific study continues to support the supernatural nature of the Shroud image.
There is no evidence of how the body was removed from the cloth—the body simply disappeared, and the cloth collapsed within the tomb. There is no evidence of decay on the fabric. In fact, the body was still in rigor mortis when the image was made—a condition of stiffening of the muscles of the body which lasts up to 40 hours after death.
Despite the horrible torture that is depicted on the cloth, the face is peaceful, serene, and majestic. The eyes are closed in death, but you get the feeling that the image documents the split second before His eyes are opened with Resurrected new life!
Young people have been taught that there is a conflict between faith and science, but the Shroud is actually the intersection of the two. The Shroud invites skeptics and believers alike to probe and study and question—and to use the tools of science to try to understand this mysterious image. Meanwhile, faith encourages us to ponder the great love of God that provided the perfect remedy for sin so that we could be reconciled to God for all eternity.
CWR: In your life, how did the Shroud become so important to you and motivate you to promote it?
Nora Creech: I learned about the Shroud when I was in high school, and a member of my church participated in the 1978 STURP team. Since then, I have studied the cloth extensively and find great joy in sharing about it with others. I believe that the Shroud was preserved so that we can explore it with our modern minds and modern technology to discover how ineffable God is. He left us the first “selfie” so that we could seek His Face and learn more about Him by studying His Holy Shroud.
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Just finished reading “ The Shroud of Jesus” by Dr. Gilbert Lavoie and highly recommend. The details of the scientific evidence of the Shroud are amazing.
What is convincing about the Shroud is not the scientific data, though not to be discounted, rather the Shroud itself. “The face is peaceful, serene, and majestic” (Nora Creech).
It’s that majesty unlike any majesty seen or envisioned bearing the terrible wounds, projecting the profoundest humility, greatest sublimity, a divine sorrow that compels compunction.
Yes! I do not care about the scientific data in this case. It is enough for me to see the Face.
Interestingly, several attempts to plainly reconstruct the image of the Shroud (to make a realistic face) do not have an impact that the Shroud has.
True. I’ve noticed the same. Which is why I keep images of the Shroud, and not artistic or modified reproductions.
My husband and I had the privilege to visit The Shroud in Turin many years ago. It one of the most blessed experiences I have had in my life.
I can still remember, back in ‘88, a woman I knew, an atheist ex-Catholic, remarking to me, ever so casually and literally apropos of nothing we’d been talking about, “Oh, I see the Shroud of Turin is fake.” I wonder what she would say now if she knew that even scientists give little if any credence to the carbon dating done back then. Unfortunately, I doubt it would make any difference. Some people, particularly those who pride themselves on their “open-mindedness,” are surprisingly closed-minded when it comes to anything Catholic.
Three supportive points:
FIRST, the official and exhaustive website for the Shroud, with constant research updates, is: https://www.shroud.com/
SECOND, a possible clarification of wording. In 1898, before the photographic images were printed, the negatives themselves gave the clearer image than the reversed and positive prints (where the lights become dark, and the dark becomes light).
THIRD, a point about scientific method. Lab experiments are not designed to prove “x”, but rather to disprove the null hypothesis. So, does the particular (and flawed?) Carbon-14 test of 1988 disprove the possible authenticity of the Shroud, or not?
A compact quote is accurately included in the article: “homogeneity is lacking in the data and that the procedure should be reconsidered.” What does data homogeneity mean?
Well, it has to do with multiple and independent sources of information—and then the possible selectivity and politicization of “science” (!). . .So, about the debate over the C-14 test in 1988, one author, Joseph Marino, unpacks part of the mystery in an interview with “Inside the Vatican” (May-June 2021). Here’s an extract from that interview:
“The overall accuracy of the C-14 test is generally overblown by the C-14 community and in the perceptions of the public. The C-14 test is generally utilized as a confirmatory test, used in conjunction with other data points. If the results match with other data points, it’s a strong indication that the [C-14] dating assigned is correct. If it doesn’t match with other data points, it is often discarded, even if it is not known why the data was apparently inaccurate.
“Most people are unaware of how often rogue [C-14] dates are produced in various datings. There was even an instance in the 1980s where an object was dated into the future! Given all the previous testing on the Shroud that seemed to indicate it was an ancient Jewish burial cloth, the medieval dating of the Shroud did not match most of the other data points. In most cases of this nature, the C-14 date would have been thrown out: but in this case the opposite happened—all of the other data indicating authenticity was thrown out [!].
“And there’s no doubt this happened because it is claimed to be [the] burial cloth of Jesus. That’s a scenario that scares a lot of people, and I believe it affects scientific objectivity. That lack of objectivity was exhibited before, during, and after the process, as documented in my book” (“The 1988 C-14 Dating of the Shroud of Turin: A Stunning Expose,” 2020).
Marino’s research can be accessed at http://newvistas.homestead.com/
It seems the C-14 test was deliberately undermined. The sample was taken from an area that nuns had repaired with cotton threads and then dyed. Only 1 sample was taken instead of the 7 in the original protocol. A French scientist analyzed the C-14 test results and showed increasing ages as the samples were less corrupted with cotton fibers. Italian scientists have developed 3 other tests, chemical and mechanical, that place the shroud in the 1st century more or less. Other Italian scientists have shown stroboscopic type images on the Shroud that show the Beloved One in movement at His Resurrection.
Comforting to me is that this same group contends that they have detected an undergarment of that era with a python skin belt and a metal clasp that show our Beloved Savior King was not naked at His crucifixion. I want to believe that the Almighty would thus make it so.
No one today can make an image as the Shroud.
The multiplicities of evidence; ancient pollen grains, actual blood and blood of type AB, the fact that the image is not distorted by draping of the cloth indicating an unknown type of radiation or light, the fact that the image is a negative an unknown quality to a ‘medieval forger’, the fact that the herringbone weave of linen is appropriate to the first century and not extant in medieval Europe, the fact that a tentative travel history of the shroud can be constructed from pollen grains and a few historical accounts and images, the fact that St Paul mentioned the Shroud Image perhaps in an epistle –if one assembles all the probabilities of these impossible to fake fakeries then it is clear that the shroud must be an artifact of an ancient crucifixion and if it is not the Beloved One of God then by what miracle is it not?
As Fr Spitzer says this is Almighty God saying ‘gotcha’ to scientism.
Here’s how it was done. You create a statue, probably of stone, but maybe some other material was used. You heat it up in a fire. Then you wrap it with a linen cloth. People who like to believe this stuff will believe it no matter how easy such things are to fake.
Such an image would be distorted. It would not have 3d information. It would not contain ancient pollen grains. Where would the faker get the exact type AB blood that matches the sudarium of Oviedo and the Eucharistic miracles. Where would the faker get the ability to match the many matching blood stains on the Sudarium which has a provenance to 600 AD. No one has successfully duplicated the Shroud and no one in ‘science’ can explain it. I think 3 of the STURP crew became converts after the examination. Even Barry Swartz, a non beliaving Jew, thinks it is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. Try Father Spitzers videos.
And yet, to this day, the image formation remains a mystery! One would think that if it were as easy as samton909 describes, it would have already been done.