The following is a Google Translation of an article by Maria Teresa Martinengo that appeared in Vatican Insider:
The International Centre for Sindonologia of Turin, which by statute "ensures every scientific support, technical and organizational field Shroud to the Papal Custodian of the Shroud," that the archbishop of Turin, the president Bruno Barberis [pictured] distances himself from theories that Professor Giulio Fanti supports the "Journal of Imaging Science and Technology." Above all, the conclusion reached by the Paduan professor when he says, "would be required voltages up to tens of millions of volts. Or, coming from the scientific field, a phenomenon linked to the resurrection. "
Professor Barberis, a mathematician at the University of Turin is categorical: "We are scientists and we must always remember the lesson of Galileo. If we can not verify, and reproduce, our study did not have scientific importance. And the resurrection that Fanti wants to prove scientifically – we can not reproduce in the laboratory. Of course, we can not reproduce the nuclear reactions in the sun, but we can study the sun with sophisticated tools that we have today. We know what happens. Another is the case of the resurrection. "
Insists, Barberis: "The resurrection is called supernatural phenomenon, and can not be studied by the sciences we need to understand the natural phenomena. As long as a man can not bring back to life someone verify this phenomenon, talk is out of place. "
For Barberis, one of the scientists closer to the Church of Turin, the concerns are many. "The corona mentioned Fanti may also be the case, but a natural phenomenon that reproduces in the size you need is not there. And with the current tools, corona is only applicable to a small piece of tissue. "
Reiterates several times the same concept, Bruno Barberis. "If there is something scientific – notes – I have to be able to repeat in the laboratory, otherwise it is not scientific. This approach is the only possible one, shared by the International Centre for Sindonologia and many other scientists who do not want to prove anything. "
Now, what about UV?
Any volunteers for a better translation? See http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/documenti/dettaglio-articolo/articolo/sindone-13430
What an odd comment. Mathematically, I suppose, anything which is by definition scientifically inexplicable is consequently… um… unable to be explained by science, and therefore it would indeed be pointless trying. However, I doubt if any theologians of today (not excluding Pope Benedict in the second volume of his biography of Jesus) think the same as Professor Barberis. The theology of the resurrection has moved away from ‘a conjuring trick with bones’ (as the Anglican Bishop of Durham put it way back in 1984) and is no longer dependent on an irrational, or unscientific physical occurrence. What is extraordinary, and worth exploring, theologically, is not what actually occurred in the tomb, but what the followers of Jesus understood by the Resurrection, and how such an understanding led to the development of Christianity.
Good for them. That leaves the empty tomb (and its various cloths) available for scientists to speculate on. Good for us!
It is comforting to hear such honest positions from someone who “ensures every scientific support…to the Papal Custodian of the Shroud”. I am sure he will provide the Church with truly scientific advice.
What about UV Dan??? I hope you noticed all the recent posts I made on your blog on this topic!
For all the people who didn’t, here’s my most recent comment I published this morning and in which I summarized my thoughts about the UV experiments done by Di Lazzaro and his team:
“For anyone who can be interested by the subject, I would like to summarize my thoughs about the coloring experiments done by M. Di Lazzaro and his team with a UV laser. For me, these experiments are very interesting and even important because it clearly shows that the best thing we can possibly expect from an energetic radiation that hit a linen cloth is at least a coloration of the thin layer of impurities located on-top of the fibers AND ALSO a coloration of the primary cell wall of the linen fiber, which is the first layer of the fiber.
This is very telling because it is a confirmation of Ray Rogers’ conclusion who once wrote that, in his mind, it is highly improbable that any kind of energetic radiation can be able to ONLY color a thin layer of impurities without affecting and coloring the linen fiber located underneath. In fact, Rogers was pretty sure about that because he did make some coloring experiments with energetic radiation and the best thing he could get was the same kind of result obtained by M. Di Lazzaro and his team, i.e. a coloration of only the primary cell wall of the fiber (with no coloration of the heart of the fiber) with a corona discharge. The description of this experiment can be found in his book A Chemist’s Perspective on the Shroud of Turin (take good note of figure X-7 and the comment under it that you can found in page 86 of the PDF version of his book). And Rogers was very clear about the fact that, in his mind, this kind of result is NOT CONSISTENT with the real nature of the body image on the Shroud, which is located only in a thin layer of carbohydrate impurities and NOTHING ELSE (i.e. it leaves the underneath fiber COMPLETELY INTACT EVEN ON ITS SURFACE).
The bottom line is this: I truly don’t think we can expect anything more from the UV laser experiments of M. Di Lazzaro and his team and, if we base our judgment on Rogers’ conclusions, we have to conclude that this kind of energetic radiation is not able to explain the Shroud’s image. And I think we can expect the same for any other sort of energetic radiation…
In sum, I think Shroud scientists who want to explain the Shroud’s image properly have to find other coloration processes that can ONLY color a thin layer of impurities, while leaving the linen fiber underneath completely intact. And so far, as I know, the only experimental result that match completely this very particular characteristic is the one made by Rogers with a linen sample made with the ancient method of making linen and an exposition to ammoniac gas. Again, you can find a good description of this particular experiment in Rogers’ book (note the figure XI-4 in page 104 of the PDF version of his book).
Because of Rogers’ experiments, I have a very hard time to believe that anything else than a gaseous or molecular transfer from a dead body to a linen cloth can really give a similar result (i.e. a coloration that is ONLY located in the thin layer of impurities while the fiber underneath is left intact). That’s the main reason why I highly favored this kind of natural hypothesis involving a gaseous and/or a molecular transfer over any other hypothesis that has even been proposed to explain the Shroud’s image.”
In this particular comment, I think I have summarized pretty well the situation of all the hypothesis of image formation involving any kind of energetic radiation in the light of Rogers’s conclusion and experimental results (and in the light of Di Lazzaro’s own results that he recently published in a new paper)…
Here’s the bottom line of this whole issue : IF WE BELIEVE RAY ROGERS (AND I DON’T SEE ANY GOOD REASON TO DOUBT HIS CONCLUSIONS ON THIS TOPIC), THE RESULTS OF THE UV LASER EXPERIMENTS DONE BY DI LAZZARO AND HIS TEAM ARE NO MORE CONSISTENT WITH THE REAL NATURE OF THE BODY IMAGE OF THE SHROUD THAN ANY OTHER EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS OBTAINED WITH ANOTHER FORM OF ENERGETIC RADIATION, INCLUDING FROM A CORONA DISCHARGE.
Effectively, all these form of energetic radiation ALWAYS produced some coloration of the linen fiber (whether it be the primary cell wall only or the whole fiber) and, if we believe Rogers’ judgment about this issue, the image formation process for the Shroud has NOT affected the linen fiber in any way and the coloration is ONLY located in the thin layer of carbohydrates impurities that his almost certainly coating the most superficial fibers on the surface of the cloth. I think it’s about time that real honest scientist start to take Roger work and push it forward because he is truly the one who have produced a coloration result that is the closest chemically and physically to what we see on the Shroud and what is very interesting about that is the fact that his hypothesis is totally coherent with the image we see on the Shroud, which is the one of a DEAD MAN.
Note: You can see many interesting comments about the experiments of Di Lazzaro (from me and others) on this page: http://shroudstory.com/2012/12/10/enea-magazine-special-edition-new-paper-on-shroud-of-turin-conservation/#comments
One suggestion of reading: http://shroudstory.com/2012/12/10/enea-magazine-special-edition-new-paper-on-shroud-of-turin-conservation/#comment-20235
It is the first comment I wrote recently about the new paper published by Di Lazzaro… I think reading it might help some people to understand even better my previous comment just above.
The answer to the last question in the interview-article “Science and religion meet in Shroud research” posted on the HSG website makes it evident that Professor Giulio Fanti has been unjustly accused.
While respecting Professor Bruno Barberis as a person and as a scientist one is also bound to ask him why he has not published the paper challenging Prof. Fanti’s contention if he is so scientific in his approach, another contention voiced in the interview. And, if he and the people at the International Centre in Turin are so close to the papal custodian, why is there no explanation about the hundreds of microphotographs that are still unavailable?
Is this the cooperation requested by Benedict XVI? It is Turin that should give the best example.
Who did the best job to study the corona discharge hypothesis ?
To my knowledge, Rogers, and his conclusions were similar, Fanti’s work was not scientific.
Exactly! And Rogers’ conclusion concerning the effects of a corona discharge on a linen fiber can well be extrapolated to any other form of energetic radiation known to man. The bottom line is this: It doesn’t seem to exist one form of energetic radiation that is “mild” enough to ONLY color a thin layer of impurities on-top of a linen fiber without affecting at the same time the fiber underneath in some way that is easily distinguishable for a radiation expert like Rogers. On the contrary, it really seems to exist many types of post-mortem gases (amines) that can caused such a result (i.e. a coloration that ONLY affect the layer of impurities on-top of the linen fiber without affecting at all the fiber underneath). I’m truly convinced that this is the path Shroud science should follow in order to fully explain one day the body image (i.e. a biological interaction of some kind that include most probably the release of some post-mortem gases, particularly ammoniac).
I agree with Barberis.