A Response to the Response: On Moraes, Modeling, and the Search for Understanding
In recent days, the peer-reviewed paper by Cicero Moraes, Image Formation on the Holy Shroud—A Digital 3D Approach, has prompted a flurry of rebuttals from proponents of Shroud authenticity. One such response, widely circulated among us shroudies, begins with a bold and damning assertion:
“This admission reveals the fundamental flaw in Moraes’ methodology: he deliberately excludes the most important scientific evidence…”
But does it? Or does it simply reveal the scope and intent of a focused study?
Moraes was explicit about what his paper would—and would not—cover. He makes clear that his work is strictly about geometry and cloth-body interaction, using 3D modeling software to simulate what happens when a cloth drapes over either a real human form or a bas-relief. He openly states that he does not attempt to address the chemical composition of the image, blood chemistry, or the mysterious superficiality of the coloration.
In other words: Moraes does not ignore these other elements. He excludes them by design. That is not a flaw. It is methodological clarity.
To claim otherwise is to confuse scope with failure.
Modeling Is Not Explanation—But It Is Inquiry
Critics accuse Moraes of failing to explain all of the Shroud’s complex features. But that was never his claim. His goal was to test one variable: the plausibility of image geometry as the result of a cloth interacting with a sculpted form. This kind of modeling does not prove the Shroud is a forgery. But neither does it need to.
It simply raises a question: Could the image have arisen from a bas-relief technique under certain conditions? If the geometry fits better than a full human wrapping, that’s a piece of data. Not a conclusion, but a clue.
Even if one believes Moraes’ hypothesis ultimately fails—as many do—his work contributes to a long tradition of testing the Shroud’s features through falsifiable experimentation. Isn’t that the essence of scientific progress?
The Danger of Overreaction
What raises concern is not just the volume of rebuttals to Moraes, but their intensity. The tone of some responses borders on alarm. They call the paper “catastrophically flawed,” accuse Moraes of “deliberately excluding” key evidence, and repeat claims about “42 scientific requirements” with near-scriptural finality.
This tone is counterproductive.
It suggests that any challenge to authenticity must be not only wrong, but dangerously wrong—worthy of rapid and overwhelming rebuttal. But if the Shroud’s authenticity is so robust, it should not need this kind of rhetorical overkill. It should stand calmly, even gratefully, amid challenge.
Are the 42 Requirements Beyond Question?
The rebuttal leans heavily on a list of 42 physical, chemical, and forensic “requirements” that any image formation theory must allegedly satisfy. But these, too, deserve scrutiny.
- Are all 42 equally well-verified?
- Are some interpretations of data still contested?
- Are there alternative explanations for certain traits (e.g., image superficiality, blood-image chronology) that deserve reexamination?
To declare the list closed, and then to accuse others of failure for not addressing the whole of it, is a form of gatekeeping—not science.
Science is a dialogue. It evolves. If Moraes’ work addresses even one element in a novel or productive way, it is worth engaging—without panic.
Three Possibilities—and the Value of Staying Curious
Let us remember: the question is not whether Moraes’ modeling is the final word. It isn’t. But his paper invites us to consider three possibilities:
- Moraes is wrong—his model does not reflect reality.
- The “established” data about the Shroud may include errors, misinterpretations, or unwarranted assumptions.
- There is still a genuine mystery here, and new methods—including digital modeling—may reveal layers of insight we have yet to grasp.
If Moraes’ conclusions seem incomplete, let’s say so. But let’s also be honest: so are ours. The Shroud has not been explained. No one—not even the most credentialed team—has accounted for every aspect to universal satisfaction.
We should welcome attempts like Moraes’—not because they settle the debate, but because they keep the debate open.
In Conclusion: A Call for Calm Inquiry
The mystery of the Shroud of Turin is deep and worthy of reverence. But reverence does not mean retreating from investigation. Nor should we treat every dissenting model as a threat.
When someone approaches the problem differently—even imperfectly—our best response is not to cry foul, but to ask: What does this add? What question does it raise? What might we learn next?
In this spirit, Moraes’ paper is not a “catastrophic failure.” It is a contribution. Whether it’s right, wrong, or somewhere in between—it belongs in the conversation.
And that is, after all, the only way we ever get closer to truth.
Regarding the Cicero Moraes’ paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5003510 — which is really just a rehash of old arguments, relying, I would say, on a logic as primitive as that of flat earthers.
The analogies here are quite direct. Just like flat earthers can’t imagine that the Earth is round because maps in atlases are flat, this guy (like many others) can’t imagine that the Shroud (which consists of two flat 2D imprints) once wrapped a 3D human body. And there are other aspects as well: the fact that the body image is projected “at a distance” in such a way that it produces a 3D effect, like we see on the Shroud, is practically impossible to achieve using medieval techniques. That’s why proponents of the forgery hypothesis have for years been experimenting with bas-reliefs — but with rather poor results. Still, this kind of argument is very effective at confusing simple, uneducated people who have never studied concepts such as differentiable manifolds ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differentiable_manifold ).
In the case of the Shroud, the body (although not entirely, as some parts are missing for unknown reasons, like the sides or the top of the head!) can be considered a differentiable manifold — that is, a non-flat geometrical space — which was somehow (though not in a fully defined or universally agreed-upon way) mapped onto two regions of flat space, namely the Shroud. Meanwhile, the skeptics want to oversimplify and trivialize the whole issue by reducing it to a flat bas-relief, mapped directly onto the Shroud using orthographic projection. This is, theoretically, a mathematically trivial solution — but practically very difficult: a forger would’ve had to calculate everything precisely on that bas-relief, including angles and trigonometric relationships. That seems highly unlikely and would have required a computer.
The fact is, when you read the article, it’s clear that the guy simply applies an orthographic projection onto the surface of the Shroud — and that naturally leads to obvious distortions. But he models those distortions using a computer and commonly available software (which is, in itself, a valuable takeaway — that such things can be done for free on a home PC!). Here’s a Wikipedia article on projections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthographic_projection But orthographic projection onto the cloth is almost certainly not the correct model for what we see on the Shroud.
Back in the 1970s and 80s, Jackson and others used vertical projection (perpendicular to the ground surface) to study the 3D properties of the Shroud image — simply because it was the easiest to describe and use for scientific analysis.Orthographic projection assumes perpendicular lines to the cloth’s plane, while vertical projection assumes lines going straight down relative to the ground — a subtle but important difference in the context of how the Shroud wrapped the body. Later, Latendresse suggested that the projection actually followed the shortest path between points on the body and the cloth — and I think he’s probably right.
Anyway, this Brazilian guy used free software to simulate an orthographic projection, doesn’t even consider other options (even though he goes on at length about various Shroud studies — more than about his own work), and then used a computer to simulate the shape of a hypothetical bas-relief that could have been used to make the Shroud. But this proves absolutely nothing about the Shroud being made with a bas-relief. I’m not saying Cicero Moraes’s article is devoid of scientific value — I just think this is not the right direction. And certainly not the only one.
Please, read my answer to CISS on ResearchGate: “My Public Response to the Centro Internazionale di Studi della Sindone (CISS) Regarding the Study in Archaeometry (2025)”. A big hug!