A reader from Boston writes:
The Zenit piece about the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe being enthroned in Turin contains this strange sentence: “The Shroud and the tilma of Guadalupe are similar in that neither depiction is considered the work of an artist, but rather images created miraculously.”
I’m surprised you didn’t jump on that. You and nearly every reasonable shroud scholar in recent years has emphasized that we don’t know how the images were created. Saying miraculously means claiming to know how.
Okay. But if I say miraculously – and I’m not – I’m at best expressing belief. So no, I don’t really “know” if I say miraculously since that cannot be proven.
Frankly, I’m inclined to think that the images on the Shroud of Turin were created by some yet unknown, non-miraculous natural phenomenon such as an amino/carbonyl chemical reaction. Many others think the images are the by-product of the miracle of Resurrection by some yet unknown form of energy. To me, that sort of miraculous formation makes no sense at all. I would prefer a full-throttled, unrelated-to-the-Resurrection miracle if it must be miraculous.
What I do have a problem with in that Zenit statement is the total lack of journalistic objectivity. To say that neither depiction is considered the work of an artist needs qualification. I certainly don’t think there is enough information to claim anything about how the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was created. My opinion, until I see evidence to the contrary, is that it was created by an artist.