I was checking out some of the videos and stories related to the opening of the exhibition. In one video, Archbishop Nosiglia said the church is not against new testing. One of the new articles quoted Pope John Paul II in 1998 saying continued research should be done. I think researchers have done their part in continuing research but one can only do so much with the 1978 data. I know the Pope has a lot of things on his plate but if Popes and Archbishops are giving lip service to research/new testing, he really needs to reevaluate the role of the Shroud in the church. If new testing did not disprove the authenticity, it could bring a lot more people to Christianity. There have been expositions in 1998, 2000, 2010 and the current one. A tremendous amount of time, energy and money have been spent in each of those. It would have been nice if some of that time, energy and money could have been put in another multi-disciplinary study. We now have Barberis saying another C-14 test should be done. As we saw at the St. Louis conference, there is a lot of debate among researchers whether it should be done. If it is done, a lot would obviously depend on the background study and the various entities involved in the testing. Heaven forbid if it would be anything like the 88 testing.
In referring to Barberis, Joe is, I think, referring to SHROUD: TRACES OF BLOOD FROM THE "CARBON-14": WHAT DOES SCIENCE SAY, a Google Translation of an article, SINDONE, DALLE TRACCE EMATICHE AL "CARBONIO-14": COSA DICE LA SCIENZA in Famiglia Cristiana.
I favor retesting. Bill Meacham (The Rape of the Shroud) continues to advocate for it. Some people believe that the shroud cannot be tested accurately and oppose such testing. One reason: they think that a resurrection miracle changed the ratio of carbon 14 to carbon 12. Maybe. But how do you test for that?