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Sydney to host international conference on Shroud of Turin
March 08, 2025
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Interest in the Shroud of Turin has exploded around the world over the past few years, due partly to new dating tests indicating the burial cloth is from the first century – contradicting a carbon dating in 1988 that suggested the Shroud was from the Middle Ages.
The renewed interest in the Shroud is reflected in two international conferences to be held this year, one in the United States in St Louis and another in Sydney – the first ever held in Australia.
The Shroud is arguably the word’s most famous religious relic partly because it carries what appears to be a “photographic” image of Jesus between death and resurrection – a claim that has helped make it the most researched artefact in history.
The Sydney conference is the latest sign that Shroud researchers are becoming increasingly vocal in insisting the Shroud is authentic.
Before carbon daters claimed that the Shroud was medieval, countless people around the world were convinced the four-metre-long linen cloth was the actual burial cloth of Jesus. And now the new dating tests, other scientific studies confirming that the Shroud is genuine, and the release of the original carbon dating data confirming the carbon date was not reliable, all point to the authenticity of the Shroud.
One reason the Shroud has long been considered genuine is that when the first photograph was taken of the Shroud in 1898, it became clear that the image on it had been a negative photo image many centuries before photography was developed in the 1800s.
This attracted the attention of scientists and historians around the world, leading to many more discoveries supporting the Shroud’s authenticity.
One of the first discoveries by some of the world’s leading forensic pathologists was that all the blood flows on the cloth were completely authentic – something no artist has ever achieved.
Then it was discovered the blood contained high levels of blood chemicals consistent with someone who was tortured.
The Shroud also had soil deposits and flower pollens from Jerusalem.
One of the most intriguing discoveries was that the Shroud revealed details of Jesus’ crucifixion that only an eyewitness could have known. They included nails through the wrists, rather than the palms of the hands which modern science has shown could not have supported the weight of a man. Scourge marks on the Shroud image have also been shown to be from three different scourges used by Roman soldiers – a fact known to modern archaeologists, but not at all in the Middle Ages.
The linen cloth has also been shown to have a primitive weave style and stitching only found in the first century.
Details of the Sydney conference, made public last month, confirm that some of the world’s leading experts on the Shroud will speak at the event from June 27 to 29 and that it will include an exhibition featuring a full-sized replica of the Shroud, a model of the Crown of Thorns based on the Shroud image and artefacts of Christ’s Passion – the nails, spear head, and scourges indicated by the Shroud.
A Shroud replica to be shown at the exhibition was made by the Shroud of Turin Research Association (STERA), established by the late Barrie Schwortz, a Jewish photographer who was the documenting photographer for the famous Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) which carried out extensive scientific tests on the Shroud in 1978. STURP concluded that the image on the cloth defied explanation.
Many scientists since then have argued that the image was caused by a massive burst of radiant energy. Its discoloration of the linen cloth that formed the image has only ever been duplicated by using high-intensity UV light from excimer lasers.
Although the Catholic Church has not taken up an official position on the authenticity of the Shroud, many popes have had a personal devotion to it. The past three popes – Francis, Benedict XVI and John-Paul II – have all made pilgrimages to the Shroud.
The Sydney conference is to be opened by Sydney Auxiliary Bishop, Bishop Richard Umbers, and has the support of the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney. It will feature 30 information panels, developed with input from Shroud scholars from all over the world.
It will include displays first seen at the National Eucharistic Congress in the United States last year that attracted thousands of people who queued for hours to see the exhibits.
The displays were developed by Othonia, the Rome-based international institute which works throughout the world to educate the public on the Shroud.
Key speakers at the conference will include David Rolfe, best known as the director of the famous documentary film about the Shroud of Turin, The Silent Witness, which won a BAFTA award after it was shown in cinemas around the world in 1978. Rolfe’s exposure to the Shroud during the film’s production prompted his conversion from atheism to Christianity.
He has attracted publicity around the world in recent years by making a million-dollar bet that researchers cannot replicate the image on the Shroud. After launching the wager in Britain, he extended it to the United States and plans to do the same during his Australian visit.
Apart from the Silent Witness, Rolfe has made three other documentaries on the Shroud: Shroud of Turin Material Evidence, A Grave Injustice (about the controversial carbon dating of the Shroud), and most recently, Who Can He Be? Rolphe will host a viewing of his latest film at the end of the conference.
Another speaker is Shroud expert Fr Andrew Dalton, a Catholic priest who is a professor of theology at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome.
Fr Dalton worked with Shroud experts around the world to bring university-level studies to the English-speaking world and teaches the Biblical Theology of the Passion of the Christ for the Science and Faith Institute, which works in collaboration with the International Centre of Shroud Studies in Turin and the Giulio Ricci Diocesan Centre of Shroud Studies in Rome.
He has lectured on the Shroud and the sufferings of Christ all over the world with the aim of “bridging the gap between scientific observation and theological interpretation”.
I will also be a speaker at the conference. I will speak about my two books, Riddles of the Shroud: Questions Science Can’t Answer, and The Shroud Rises, as the Carbon Date is Buried.
The conference will also be addressed by the President of Sydney’s Campion College, Dr Paul Morrissey, who teaches theology and religious studies at university and high school level. Dr Morrissey taught systematic and moral theology at the University of Notre Dame for eight years and has published many papers in New Blackfriars, Nova et Vetera, Logos and Solidarity.
Further details about the conference can be found at the Holy Shroud Australia website.
Hopefully the latest conferences and ongoing research will help to restore faith in the Shroud’s authenticity and to confirm the historical accuracy of Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.
Forward this article to friends who might be interested in learning about this amazing relic!
William West is an Australian journalist and editor who has worked on national and international news publications for half a century.
Image credit: an image of the Shroud from 1582
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