The Shroud Codex (32 page)

“I guess I am,” she said. “What I am describing is how Christ’s body transfigured, much like we see the New Testament gospel describing Christ after the resurrection. Christ appears to the apostles after the resurrection almost magically, as if he chooses to leave and reenter our normal four dimensions through an unseen fifth, special dimension. The importance of quantum physics is that it allows us to see our world bounded by length, width, height, and time, but it allows us to envision a multidimensional universe that is not bounded by our ordinary understanding of time and space. What the Shroud evidences is that human beings
can transform the mass of their bodies into energy so as to make the transition into another dimension with the speed of light.”

“That’s all well and good,” Ferrar said, not sure he really understood a word of what Dr. Bucholtz was saying, “but what does this have to do with the resurrection of Jesus Christ?”

She did her best to explain. “The image of the man in the Shroud, in my judgment as a professional physicist, could only have been created by a phenomenon in which the man in the Shroud passed through into an extraordinary dimension, where, if he had been perceived as dead, he was suddenly seen as alive. In other words, it is completely conceivable to me that the man in the Shroud emerged with a transfigured body that would appear to us in our dimensions, if we could perceive it at all, as being not a physical body, but rather a body that was composed of part spirit and part physical material.”

“Okay.” Ferrar persisted. “Then what you are describing is the resurrection of Jesus Christ?”

“I am a physicist, Mr. Ferrar,” Dr. Bucholtz said, acknowledging her limits. “You are asking a religious question that I am not qualified to answer. But you can interpret what I am saying as consistent with the description of Christ’s resurrection in the New Testament, if you want to.”

Ferrar appeared pleased with that answer.

Listening carefully, Marco Gabrielli decided to interrupt, determined to take the discussion down to a much more practical level.

“Excuse me, Dr. Bucholtz,” Gabrielli began, “but if I understand you directly, a key point you are making is that the image of the man in the Shroud of Turin is three-dimensional. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” she said. “And more importantly, that the three-dimensional image has the characteristics of a hologram. In other
words, we can lift a hologram of the man in the Shroud from the information contained in the brownish red image.”

“So, to produce a Shroud by means of artistic forgery, all a painter would have to do is to paint an image that was three-dimensional in nature with holographic characteristics embedded in the two-dimensional information. If I understand you, that is what the Shroud of Turin does. Is that right?”

“Yes,” she said, a bit tentatively. “I guess that’s right.”

He pressed on. “So the trick is to convert the three-dimensional holographic information into the two dimensions of a flat drawing, right?”

“Where are you headed, Professor Gabrielli?” Bucholtz asked, wanting him to get to the point.

“Where I’m headed is that a brilliant forger who could think three-dimensionally might have been able to accomplish the two-dimensional image artistically, without the use of any advanced technology or hologram machine,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean is this.” He started carefully. “The Shroud of Turin is two-dimensional. Studying how the image appears on the Shroud of Turin should be the key to learning how to draw three-dimensionally on a two-dimensional surface. It’s kind of like how a camera obscura teaches you to draw with perspective. Once you understand how the principles of perspective work, you don’t need a camera obscura anymore. You learn how to draw a three-dimensional image on a two-dimensional surface with the skill a painter develops by understanding perspective.”

“I see your point, Professor Gabrielli,” Bucholtz said. “But the Shroud was created before the principles of holograms were understood, so a medieval artist such as you are postulating must have been a remarkable genius.”

Gabrielli conceded that. “I agree. But we may differ in that I
do not tend to discount the genius of prior ages, as you may be inclined to do.”

Castle could see where Gabrielli was headed.

Rather than being impressed that Bucholtz was in the process of deciphering what Father Bartholomew liked to call the “Shroud codex,” Gabrielli merely understood Bucholtz as establishing a higher bar he would have to hurdle to make his forgery convincing. He would have to learn how to produce two-dimensional images with three-dimensional qualities.

Saturday

The Vatican, Rome, Italy

Day 24

Dr. Castle was ushered into the pope’s office, anticipating his first face-to-face meeting with Pope John-Paul Peter I, the man he had first met when he was Cardinal Marco Vicente.

Also scheduled to be in attendance were two Vatican physicians who had examined Father Bartholomew at Agostino Gemelli University Polyclinic since his arrival from New York on Wednesday morning. After their discussion, Father Morelli had arranged to bring Father Morelli from the hospital to visit with the pope and Dr. Castle in person.

The pope’s office was as ornate as Castle had imagined, with expensive paintings on the wall, and an elegant, hand-crafted, gold-embossed wood desk with a red leather desk pad expertly embedded into the writing surface. Looking around, Castle saw gold everywhere: in the side chairs at the pope’s desk—one of which he now occupied—in the woodwork, even in the wallpaper.
Thick antique Middle Eastern rugs, hand-woven into intricate patterns, covered the floor.

Ushered into the room next were Dr. Guilio Draghi, the attending physician at Agostino Gemelli University Polyclinic, and Dr. Giorgio Moretti, a top psychiatrist from Rome whom the Vatican had asked to meet with Father Bartholomew to confirm Dr. Castle’s analysis. The priest ushering the doctors into the room made the necessary introductions.

When the three physicians were settled in their gilded chairs in front of the pope’s desk, the doors to the Holy Father’s living quarters opened and Pope John-Paul Peter I walked into the room.

Castle was struck by how small the pope was, no more than five feet, eight inches tall, he judged. Somehow, speaking to Marco Vicente by telephone, Castle had remembered him to be a much taller man. Still, wearing the white cassock and white skullcap of the pope, highlighted by the golden chain and cross that hung down across his chest, Vicente carried himself with the obvious dignity of his office. Bowing down to kiss the papal ring on his finger, Castle was impressed by the pope’s neatly trimmed white hair and the obvious warmth exuded by his soft, olive-colored eyes.

“Gentlemen.” The pope began the meeting as he settled into the seat behind his desk. “I would like to ask you to share with me your medical opinions about Father Bartholomew. We are very pleased to have with us today Dr. Stephen Castle, a top psychiatrist from New York City. Dr. Castle and I have a history of working together that stretches back to when Archbishop Duncan was first appointed to head the Archdiocese of New York. I am going to ask you all to speak with me frankly, as I much prefer to have the truth about Father Bartholomew, regardless of how harsh your opinions may be.”

Dr. Draghi began. “Holy Father, we have examined the CT scan
and MRI tests that Dr. Castle had sent from Beth Israel Hospital and we have repeated the tests here in Rome. Our results are identical. Father Bartholomew displays the wounds of Christ’s passion and crucifixion exactly as we see in the Shroud. Father Bartholomew exhibits the stigmata in his wrists and feet. His body shows the scourge marks we see in the Shroud, with an exact match blow for blow. His head from the brow around to the back and on top of the head throughout show the same puncture wounds we see on the Shroud resulting from a cap of thorns, not simply a circular crown of thorns banded around his head at the level of the forehead.”

“I understand,” the pope said.

Draghi continued. “Moreover, our tests show the same result as we saw at Beth Israel. The wounds Father Bartholomew suffered could have been fatal to an average man of his age and physical condition. Yet the wounds have healed remarkably fast and completely, so much so that I cannot now determine after only a few days since the last incident if the nail punctures in his wrists and feet ever went all the way through. There is substantial healing evident from within on all the wounds we see on Father Bartholomew’s body. I have no medical explanation for how or why.”

“What does the psychiatric evaluation show?” the pope asked Dr. Moretti.

“You must understand that my results are preliminary, Holy Father,” Dr. Moretti began, carefully hedging his conclusions. “But I tend to agree with Dr. Castle that Father Bartholomew is suffering from a form of multiple personality disorder. Father Bartholomew is under the illusion that he suffered an after-life experience in which he was given a choice by God to return to life. He believes he can see Jesus and speak with Jesus. He believes that Jesus instructs him in the confessional to give to confessants the precise spiritual advice they need in order to be healed
miraculously by the intervention of Jesus. Father Bartholomew further believes his mission from God was to return to life so he could prove the Shroud of Turin is the actual burial cloth of Jesus Christ.”

Listening, Dr. Castle was relieved to hear the Italian psychiatrist chosen by the Vatican agreeing with his diagnosis.

“So, Dr. Moretti, if I understand you correctly: Father Bartholomew, in your opinion, is psychologically disturbed, is that right?” the pope asked.

“Yes, Your Holiness, it is.”

“And you, Dr. Castle, agree with that analysis?” The pope pressed on.

“As Dr. Moretti noted, my analysis is also preliminary,” Castle said carefully. “Neither Dr. Moretti nor I have had much time to work with Father Bartholomew in a therapeutic setting. But, yes, I do concur that Father Bartholomew is suffering from a severe multiple personality disorder in which he has come to identify his ego with Jesus Christ. As you know, Father Bartholomew has managed subconsciously to alter his physical appearance to represent the icon of Christ depicted in the Shroud. I believe all his wounds are psychosomatic in nature.”

“So then, Drs. Moretti and Castle, am I correct in assuming that neither of you is prepared to assert that Father Bartholomew’s stigmata and other injuries have convinced you that the Shroud is authentic?” the pope asked directly.

“That’s right, Your Holiness,” Moretti said. “My conclusion is that Father Bartholomew is suffering from a psychological disorder that proves nothing about the Shroud.”

“I agree wholeheartedly,” Castle said. “Even when he was a physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Father Bartholomew was always a loner. He never married. As far as I can tell, the only person Father Bartholomew was ever close to
was his mother. When his mother passed away from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive nerve disease, Paul Bartholomew went into a crisis that was the beginning of his current psychological disorder.”

“Dr. Castle, do you think Father Bartholomew can be cured?” the pope asked.

“I don’t know, Your Holiness,” Castle answered. “As I told you and Archbishop Duncan when I agreed to take this case, Father Bartholomew’s case might take years of psychoanalysis and even then I can’t promise results.”

“Do you agree, Dr. Moretti?” the pope asked, wanting to make sure both psychiatrists had a chance to express their professional opinions clearly.

“Yes, Your Holiness, I do.”

The pope sat back in his chair and folded his hands in his lap. “It would be easy for me to dismiss Father Bartholomew, except that now there are millions of Catholics out there who believe in Father Bartholomew. What’s more, with Father Bartholomew manifesting the man we see in the Shroud, millions are now convinced that the Shroud too is authentic. I cannot just dismiss Father Bartholomew without being accused of engaging in a cover-up. People today do not believe official commissions, whether they are about the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas or whether Adolf Hitler died at the end of World War II instead of escaping to Argentina. Now we have Professor Gabrielli trying to prove the Shroud was a medieval forgery. Up until now, Gabrielli has been a minor celebrity, known primarily in this country, where he has been trying for years to prove that Padre Pio, whom we canonized, is as fake as a statue of Jesus that cries blood. But instead of that, Father Bartholomew has managed to give Gabrielli an international stage. What do you gentlemen suggest I do?”

The three physicians sat silently, thinking.

“Does the Vatican have to do anything?” Dr. Moretti asked.

“It’s a good question,” the pope said, “but after trying for the past few days to convince Professor Gabrielli that duplicating the Shroud will be no easy business, I think I’ve failed. Do you agree with this, Dr. Castle?”

“As I disclosed to you from the beginning, Your Holiness, you know I have been working in association with Professor Gabrielli,” Castle answered. “I’m sure you are all aware of the books I have written and that I profess no affinity for relics like the Shroud that tend to inspire belief in God even if the relics are false. So there is no need for me to hide my beliefs from this group.”

“Rest assured,” the pope said, “your book
The God Illusion
was translated into Italian and did quite well in the bookstores.”

“Thank you, Your Holiness,” Castle said. He knew the pope was right. “I can tell you for a fact that our meeting at CERN did nothing but convince Professor Gabrielli that he needs to refine his methods in his next try. I have no doubt that the next shroud that my friend Gabrielli fabricates will resemble the Shroud of Turin even more convincingly.”

“This is why I tried to tell Pope Paul VI that permitting scientists to examine the Shroud of Turin was a bad idea,” the pope said with obvious frustration. “I got nowhere with Pope Paul VI. He even had to go out and tell the world that the Shroud was a ‘wonderful document of Christ’s passion and death, written in blood,’ or something like that. For my part, I think the Shroud of Turin and Father Bartholomew are both sideshows to a genuine belief in God. Deep down I agree with Dr. Castle, at least in part. The last thing I want to do is to turn the Catholic Church back into a medieval relic factory.”