HERE'S the ANSWER Has the Holy Shroud of Turin ever

been officially declared to he the genuine shroud in which Our Blessed Lord was wrapped before his entombment?
MHE difficulty is. ofcourse. that
as the genuineness of the Holy Shroud involves neither morals nor dogma, no pronouncement on it, even by the Popes themselves, can be more than a personal scientific judgment having very special qualities from the nature of the office they hold and their dignity as Vicars of Christ.
This said. it can he added that all popes with the exception of the anti-pope Clement VII accept in their solemn pronouncements that the Shroud which is now venerated at Turin is the one in which Our Lord was placed in the tomb.
When the Shroud came finally to Chambary. Paul II established a college of twelve canons in the church where it was kept, to be its special guardians and venerators. Julius II, in 1506, granted the Holy Shroud a Mass and Office of its own. Pope Leo X extended the feast to the whole of Savoy, and Gregory XIII to Piedmont as well. This last Pope granted a plenary indulgence to pilgrims to the Holy Shroud. Pius VII solemnly prostrated himself before the Holy Shroud in 1814 when he returned to the Papal States; hut the most significant testimony is probably that of Pope Pius Xt. As Mgr. Ratti, a distinguished Alpinist as well as a markedly learned and scholarly man, he saw the exposition of the relic which took place in 1898. It was this exposition, the first at which photographs could be taken. which started the fierce scientific controversy on the authenticity of the Holy Shroud, From 1931. as Pope Pius XI. he started studying all available scientific and documentary evidence in connection with the Holy Shroud, a task for which he was specially well suited by his training and his many years in the Vatican Archives and the Arnbrosian Library.
At the same time, it should be clearly understood that belief in the authenticity of the Turin Holy
Shroud is not " of fa own mind Every
one is free to make up his
mind and the veneration of the relic is not dependent for the good it does on the relic's authenticity,
What are Ember Days ?
THEY are four sets of three days each, given over to special fasting for the sanctification of the four seasons; and to obtain God's blessing on the new priests. whose ordinations take place on the Ember Saturdays. The days are Wednesday, Friday and Saturday ; and the four times (the I.atin name for them is Quatuor Tentporn) are: the weeks following the First Sunday in Lent, Whitsunday. Holy Cross Day (September 14). and St. Lucy's Day (December 13). The usage is very ancient. hut its origin uncertain it was practised in Rome at the time of St. Augustine. The proper of the Masses reflect the seasons in which they occur. The derivation of the English name '• Ember " is quite uncertain and has been traced both to Anglo-Saxon and to the Latin name.