Oxford Shroud leak rejected

by Vivienne Hewitt in Rome THE VATICAN'S Turin Shroud expert, commissioned to co-ordinate the results of three different dating tests on the famed linen relic, claimed this week the DM), two of the laboratories involved were given genuine samples of the cloth. His comments came after an English academic had claimed that Oxford university's sample of the cloth had been dated at 1300.
Hence one laboratory tested a linen snippet which did not come from the Turin Shroud, Professor Luigi Gonella confirmed to a Rome newspaper. His comments fuelled speculation that Oxford had been allotted the placebo in the carbon dating tests on the Shroud.
Professor Gonella, the Vatican's official Shroud research overseer appointed by Turin Archbishop, Cardinal Anastasio Ballestrero on the Holy See's behalf, was replying to London Ewiriag SeLzirdartf allegations that the Shroud is a fake.
Professor Richard Luckett of Magdalene College, Cambridge said carbon 14 tests on Shroud samples completed in an Oxford laboratory dated the cloth, embossed with the negative image of a man and bloodstained at points suggesting a death by crucifixion, at around the 14th century.
Two further samples were sent to labs in Zurich, Switzerland and Tuscon, Arizona for dating by the same process, which is believed to have an accuracy margin of about 150 years. Results of all three tests are reported ready for despatch to the British Museum for comparison, as previously arranged by the Vatican.
But Professor Gonella revealed that only two of the labs had samples from the revered Shroud of Turin. "One of the laboratories tested samples from a false shroud", he told Rome's La Repubblica, Italy's leading daily.
He said each fragment of linen bore a different mark identifying the "genuine" samples from the fakes. The false sample would be identified only on presentation of test results to the Vatican, he added, but he would not say which lab had unwittingly tested it. "Scientists were commissioned to determine the age of the samples, not whether they had been taken from the real Turin Shroud", he told the newspaper. "None of the scientists could have known which samples were genuine."
In the Evening Standard Dr ,Richard Luckett contended that "the scientific argument is now settled and the Shroud is a fake. . . it seems unlikely that these tests could be 1300 years out."
For its part, the Church remains unperturbed at the possibility that the Shroud is not Christ's burial garment. It has never been defined by Church authorities as the real thing but rather as a "representation" of the passion of Christ which may lead the faithful into beneficial prayer and contemplation.
Apostolic Pro Nuncio Archbishop Liuigi Barbarito, while regretting the breach in confidentiality represented by Dr Luckett's comments in the Evening Standard, said ". . . most venerate the Shroud as an image of Christ, just as they might a beautiful painting by Raphael." He said it had never been a relic that proved the Catholic faith.
The disputed relic is kept in Turin, the seat of Italy's exiled royal family, the Savoys, who were the Shroud's official owners until they donated it to Pope John Paul II five years ago on the death of the wartime King, Umberto.
But the Professor's allegations that the Oxford laboratory could have tested threads from one of numerous "Holy Shrouds" in circulation since the Middle Ages contrast with descriptions of the secret sample-taking ceremony in Turin earlier this year.
Reports said at the time that samples were snipped from the linen in the presence of scientists from the laboratories commissioned to test them.
The Vatican has said it would make an official announcement on the Shroud in October following assessment of the test results and their official presentation to the Holy See.
But some reports said this week that the Pope might bring an earlier end to the debate with a declaration later this month.