Vatican's restriction of shroud tests implies no drive to preserve doubt

PROMINENCE has been given recently in the Daily Telegraph (two articles) and the Times to a new dispute regarding the out C14 carbon dating this year on the Shroud of Turin. The Evening Standard and ITN also got involved.
In the autumn of 1986, a conference in Turin (the Shroud is kept in the Royal Savoy Chapel of Turin Cathedral) proposed that seven university laboratories should carry out C14 carbon dating using 12.5 cms of the Shroud surface. The most efficient, latest methods were to be used. Professor Luigi Gonella of Turin Polytechnic emphasises that all this was a proposal and not a decision.
Now it has been decided to reduce the number of testing centres from seven to three. But this London decision needs the approval of Cardinal Ballestrero, Archbishop of Turin. It would seem that the proposed reduction to three is not yet a final decision. (Ballestrero is the guardian of the Shroud in the name of Pope John Pau' II).
The three laboratories chosen are Oxford, Arizona (USA) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. But in addition the Research Lab of Anatomy of the British Museum and the Colonetti Institute of Metrology in Rome are to check the results. The latter laboratory has not been mentioned in any article I have seen.
Nor has any mention been made of Professor Carlos Chagas, president of the Pontifical Academy of Science in Rome. He is the one that changed the original scheme of seven laboratories. Obviously, with the Vatican's incomparable collection of archaeological finds, he must be a man of both expertise and experience especially since Professor Gonella of Turin agreed with the changes he made. Rome versus Turin? It doesn't seem so.
There are two methods of C14 carbon dating. Firstly the older proportional counter method and alternatively the new and fast AMS accelerated mass spectrometer method. Oxford, Arizona and the Swiss Federal Institute, the three laboratories chosen all use the AMS method. An undertaking had been given to use the very latest methods at the conference in Turin in Autumn 1986 and to use the minimum of precious Shroud material.
The situation is aggravated by the fact that two of the rejected laboratories — Rochester and Brookhaven (both USA) — have worked for many years on the perfecting of the AMS method, and were among the very first to offer this fast and small sample invention. (Professor Gove is the head of the Rochester Research Department, Professor Harbottle of the Brookhaven).
The other two rejected laboratories used the older proportional counter method. They are the Low Level Measurements Laboratory at Harwell, England (Dr Bob Otlet) and the Turin Polytechnic (Professor Luigi Gonella). The use of the old method of C14 carbon dating has not been very successful.
As a member of the committee of the British Society for the Turin Shroud, my own feeling is that the experiments should go ahead with the chosen three, under the guidance of British Museum Research and Colonetti Institute of Metrology in Rome. Delays and frustration have been so frequent that its time the experiments were done by December of 1988 at the latest.
A widely quoted view of Dr Tutton of Canterbury University, New Zealand, that the Vatican has a "vested interest in keeping alive the possibility that the Shroud is the actual burial cloth of Jesus" should be discounted as totally unworthy of a scholar. I agree with Professor Gonella that as the Shroud is by no means an article of faith, too much fuss is being made.
The Vatican is worried that the demands of scientists will increase. And then how much of the cloth will eventually be left?
And it must be remembered that the tests are not infallible.
The C14 will register when the flax of the linen was harvested, not necessarily the age of relic itself.
There seems tobr a perpetually recurring theme: Catholic Church versus Scientists. This certainly makes news but denies the spirit of openness of Vatican II. Surely the investigation of a relic cannot be compared with the openness in relation to the gospel which was the main concern on Vatican II.
And we must give the Vatican credit for knowing what it's doing. It has one of the largest collections of archaeological And in any case are we so sure that a first century dating of the shroud from 100 laboratories would challenge the belief of sceptics?
C14 carbon dating — the converting of a sample of carbon dioxide and measuring the radioactive decay of an isotope known as carbon 14 — is only one way of indentifying the date of the Shroud flax. There are many others — forensic, medical, examination of the textiles involved, photography, remains of plants from the Dead Sea are dating from the first century AD, and sometimes compelling historical evidence.
Wonderful indeed if the Shroud is the Winding Sheet of Christ. Success to all processes of proof. But the faith of Catholics and all our Christian friends doesn't depend on the authenticity of the remarkable piece of cloth we call the Shroud of Turin.
Tom Carroll
Fr Carroll is a world authority on the Turin Shroud and is a member of the British Society for the Turin Shroud. Contact via Shroud Information Centre, Savio House, Ballington, Cheshire.