THE QUARREL OVER THE HOLY SHROUD

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 63, 11 September 1937, Page 27

THE QUARREL OVER THE HOLY SHROUD

The controversy over the Holy Shroud which has been waged for centuries by Church dignitaries and laymen—each group divided among those who argue that it is the original wrapping of the body of Christ, and those who argue that it is a fraudulent but well-intentioned reproduction—has now been transferred to the United States, where a commission has been formed to study the problem, says the "Daily Telegraph."

Organisation of this body has resulted from the efforts of the Rev. Edward A. Wuenschel, professor of dogmatic theology at the Hedemptorist Seminary, Esopus, New York, who first doubted the authenticity of the relic, and later became a firm believer that it was the original shroud. The commission, to be known as the American Commission on Studies of the Holy Shroud, will have headquarters at the Catholic University of Washington.

The controversy has been waged over a strip of cloth about 14ft long and 4Jft wide on which appears an imprint that corresponds to the anatomical features of the full-length huma« body, and carries facial features that

when revealed by photography correspond to the traditional conception of Christ. The cloth, which-is now in Turin, Italy, has an authenticated history of about 700 years, and is believed by some who have studied it to be the cloth in which Christ's body was wrapped after He had been taken from the cross, and which covered Him until His resurrection.

The imprint on the cloth'carries the almost photographic appearance of the front and the back of a body in a head-to-head position. The imprint of the feet are at one end of the cloth and that of the head is towards the centre, as if a body were laid on its back on this end. The remaining half, according to the imprint, was then bent over the head and rested on the front of the body.

The shroud is in possession of the House of Savoy, under the jurisdiction of Cardinal Fossati, Archbishop of Turin. The • data assembled by Father Wuenschel give as the earliest well authenticated historical evidence on the shroud the date 1355, when it was brought to Lirey, France, by Lord Geoffrey I. de Charney, on his return from the Crusades.