Shrouded in doubt.

FOR HALF A millennium, the Shroud of Turin-the piece of linen believed to be the burial shroud of Jesus, and which made its way to the West after the Crusades-was an object of veneration to believers, but not of much interest to the secular world. Then, at the end of the nineteenth century, a modern invention, photography, appeared to unlock one of the Shroud's secrets: when a negative of a photograph of the Shroud was viewed, it revealed a positive image of a human body, with details making plausible the identification of that body with Christ's. As further research was done, more and more corroboration with occasional scientific dissent-accumulated. Holography, pollen studies, analysis of the surface (apparently ruling out the possibility that the image was painted on)-all pointed in the same direction. The attention of many scientists was captured, especially since the message of the Shroud seemed piquantly addressed to them: only through modern technology could the Shroud be decoded; therefore, if the Shroud was indeed a message from God, it seemed particularly a message for our time.

While each test performed has added another dollop of corroboration, one crucial test has so far been postponed, because it involves destroying part of the Shroud's material: Carbon 14 dating. However, by 1986 the technology of Carbon 14 dating had advanced to a point where it could be seriously considered, since the tests no longer require a prohibitive amount of material to work with. In the fall of that year a three-day workshop was held in Turin; the 22 participants included representatives from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and from carbon-dating laboratories in England, France, Italy, Switzerland, and America. The workshop unanimously recommended that the tests be carried out; and that they be done under strict controls, since their credibility, if they came up with a positive result, would be challenged by the skeptics. The workshop decided that seven laboratories should perform the tests simultaneously.

Nothing then happened for a year, at which point the science advisor to the Archbishop of Turin, Professor Luigi Gonella, astonished those who had been following the story by announcing a drastic change in the program: only two or three laboratories would participate (even though, when several labs performed a test run last year on a piece of cloth whose age was known, one of them came up with an answer that was wrong by a thousand years), As representatives of the seven laboratories said in a letter to the archbishop, this change in the project meant "risking the possibility that what may be the first and only chance to date the Shroud cloth will fail."

In January a closed meeting was held at the British Museum with representatives of the three chosen labs, and sample-taking was scheduled for some time before Easter. It now appears that those plans have been stalled. For both those who hope the Shroud is what it is claimed to be, and those whose scientific curiosity has been aroused, the best outcome would be a further postponement, giving the Pope a chance to reconsider a decision that, once implemented, would be irreversible.