Rome, Italy, Dec 19, 2015 / 03:39 pm (CNA).- The Shroud of Turin has different meanings for many people: some see it as an object of veneration, others a forgery, still others a medieval curiosity. For one Jewish scientist, however, the evidence has led him to see it as a meeting point between science and faith. “The Shroud challenges (many people's core beliefs) because there's a strong implication that there is something beyond the basic science going on here,” Barrie Schwortz, one of the leading scientific experts on the Shroud of Turin, told CNA. Admitting that he did not know whether there was something beyond science at play, he added: “That's not what convinced me: it was the science that convinced me.” The Shroud of Turin is among the most well-known relics believed to be connected with Christ's Passion. Venerated for centuries by Christians as the burial shroud of Jesus, it has been subject to intense scientific study to ascertain its authenticity, and the origins of the image. The image on the 14 feet long, three-and-a-half feet wide cloth is stained with the postmortem image of a man – front and back – who has been brutally tortured and crucified. Schwortz, now a retired technical photographer and frequent lecturer on the shroud, was a member of the 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project which brought prestigious scientists together to examine the ancient artifact. As a non-practicing Jew at the time, he was hesitant to be part of the team and skeptical as to the shroud's authenticity – presuming it was nothing more than an elaborate painting. Nonetheless, he was intrigued by the scientific questions raised by the image.   Despite his reservations, Schwortz recounts being persuaded to remain on the project by a fellow scientist on the team – a NASA imaging specialist, and a Catholic – who jokingly told him: “You don't think God wouldn't want one of his chosen people on our team?” And Schwortz soon encountered one of the great mysteries of the image that still entrances its examiners to this day. He explained that a specific instrument used for the project was designed for evaluating x-rays, which allowed the lights and darks of an image to be vertically stretched into space, based on the lights and darks proportionately. For a normal photograph, the result would be a distorted image: with the shroud, however, the natural, 3-D relief of a human form came through. This means “there’s a correlation between image density – lights and darks on the image – and cloth to body distance.” “The only way that can happen is by some interaction between cloth and body,” he said. “It can’t be projected. It’s not a photograph – photographs don’t have that kind of information, artworks don’t.” This evidence led him to believe that the image on the shroud was produced in a way that exceeds the capacities even of modern technology. “There's no way a medieval forger would have had the knowledge to create something like this, and to do so with a method that we can't figure out today – the most image-oriented era of human history.” “Think about it: in your pocket, you have a camera, and a computer, connected to each other in one little device,” he said. “The shroud has become one of the most studied artifacts in human history itself, and modern science doesn’t have an explanation for how those chemical and physical properties can be made.” While the image on the Shroud of Turin was the most convincing evidence for him, he said it was only a fraction of all the scientific data which points to it being real. “Really, it's an accumulation of thousands of little tiny bits of evidence that, when put together, are overwhelming in favor of its authenticity.” Despite the evidence, many skeptics question the evidence without having seen the facts. For this reason, Schwortz launched the website www.shroud.com, which serves as a resource for the scientific data on the Shroud. Nonetheless, he said, there are many who still question the evidence, many believing it is nothing more than an elaborate medieval painting. “I think the reason skeptics deny the science is, if they accept any of that, their core beliefs have been dramatically challenged, and they would have to go back and reconfigure who they are and what they believe in,” he said. “It’s much easier to reject it out of hand, and not worry about it. That way they don’t have to confront their own beliefs.” “I think some people would rather ignore it than be challenged.” Schwortz emphasized that the science points to the Shroud being the burial cloth belonging to a man, buried according to the Jewish tradition after having been crucified in a way consistent with the Gospel. However, he said it is not proof of the resurrection – and this is where faith comes in. “It’s a pre-resurrection image, because if it were a post-resurrection image, it would be a living man – not a dead man,” he said, adding that science is unable to test for the sort of images that would be produced by a human body rising from the dead. “The Shroud is a test of faith, not a test of science. There comes a point with the Shroud where the science stops, and people have to decide for themselves.” “The answer to faith isn’t going to be a piece of cloth. But, perhaps, the answer to faith is in the eyes and hearts of those who look upon it.” When it comes to testifying to this meeting point between faith and science, Schwortz is in a unique position: he has never converted to Christianity, but remains a practicing Jew. And this, he says, makes his witness as a scientist all the more credible. “I think I serve God better this way, in my involvement in the Shroud, by being the last person in the world people would expect to be lecturing on what is, effectively, the ultimate Christian relic.” “I think God in his infinite wisdom knew better than I did, and he put me there for a reason.”This article was originally published on CNA Aug. 4, 2015. Read more

Rome, Italy, Jun 27, 2017 / 03:27 pm (CNA).- More than 10 years ago, Joseph Prever found himself scouring the internet for anything that might help him: he was gay, Catholic, and confused. Resources were scarce for a man struggling with homosexuality and trying to remain faithful to the Church’s teaching. In the intervening years, Catholics experiencing same-sex attraction have become a more vocal presence in the Church. Google the words “gay Catholic” and one of the top sites to appear will be Prever’s own blog, a blog with the tagline: “Catholic, Gay, and Feeling Fine.” There, the 30-something writer considers his own experiences as a man struggling with same-sex attraction and trying to live out the virtue of chastity. What follows is an edited version of a conversation about everything from homosexuality and Batman to poetry and football. The interview is published in two parts.Part OneCan you introduce yourself and your blog?   I'm Joe Prever. I used to blog under the pseudonym Steve Gershom. I’ve been doing that for a few years now. The blog is about what it’s like to be a gay Catholic – a gay Catholic who is of course, celibate – and I say ‘of course’ because that seems to me like the only option if you’re going to be both gay and Catholic. On the blog I try to stay away from abstract discourse about spirituality and sexuality in general and more towards lived experience: that’s what I see as my niche.  Why did you start writing a blog? I honestly don’t remember the thought process that led me to it, but I do remember wishing at one point that there was somebody blogging like that, and in fact these days there are just a whole lot of people in my situation who are blogging, and that’s really great. It seems liked it’s very much exploded in the last few years. My friends and I joke that there’s a gay Catholic renaissance on, or actually a gay Christian renaissance on, and we’re proud to be at the forefront of it – or at least we tell ourselves that we’re at the forefront.Did those other people read your blog before they started theirs? Some of them did, yes. In fact, a couple of them have said to me that I was someone who helped to inspire them to start, so I’m very proud of that. This was a few years ago. Even at that time there were a fair amount of resources, in the sense that there were people who were writing about it, and you could find various testimonials online if you googled hard enough, but there were very few people who, on a day to day basis were like, ‘here’s what this is like, here’s how you deal with that,’ etc.And so you decided you were going to be that resource? Yes. Because at that time, I was sort of starting to feel for the first time that things were very much manageable, and I think back to this very specific moment in college when I was 18 or 19, and googling this kind of stuff, just to see if there was anybody out there who I could relate to and who would have some wisdom to share about it, and I did in fact find some stuff. It was remembering the feeling of how good it was to find that made me want to pass that along.You blogged pseudonymously for years and then you ‘came out,’ so to speak, in the summer of 2014. Why did you decide to do that? It was one of those decisions where by the time you make it, you realize that you’ve already made it, if you see what I mean. It was hard in the sense that I’d actually always said that people shouldn’t be public about being gay, because it was not anybody’s business and I felt that it would lend legitimacy to this idea that being gay is a sort of a single way to identify yourself: I actually still sort of hold that position – kind of. (Laughs). It’s hard to describe: I don’t think that being gay is as essential of a way to identify yourself as say, being male is, or being Catholic, or being human. I guess my position right now is that if the cultural atmosphere were different from what it is, then I don’t know whether I would have gone public.   The real reason I did is because of the blog, and talking about these things in general, and the cultural conversation in general that’s happening right now – all of these things have become such a big part of my life... it wasn’t really a question of honesty. It’s just that when something is so much a part of your life, people ask you, ‘oh, so what’ve you got going on?’ or ‘what are you doing these days?’ and I felt really lame saying, ‘oh, you know, programming computers. Watching movies. Hanging out. Stuff.’   So honestly, it was largely a vanity thing. It’s like the scene in Batman Begins where Bruce Wayne is doing this, ‘I’m a rich celebrity playboy’ thing, and he’s bathing in fountains and buying hotels and so forth, and Katie Holmes’ (character) is upset with him for being such a wastrel. (Laughs) And I felt like I wanted to be publicly Batman: strictly for vanity-related reasons. I wanted everyone to know how awesome I am.I’m trying not to laugh... Well, it’s perfectly true. And I suppose there are other reasons, like I want to be a public witness and things like that, but I suspect that it’s mostly vanity.What response did you get when you ‘came out’? When people began to associate you with this gay guy who writes a blog? On the day that I made public the post where I came out, I received just piles and piles of comments and emails and text messages. Most were from people I didn't know, except for the text messages, obviously, but a very large portion of them were from people who had known me for a long time and who just wanted to say how pleased they were that I had done this and how proud they were of me to have taken this stance, and how courageous they thought I was and how honored they were to be my friend, and all of this stuff. In other words, I can't think of a single friend, family member, or acquaintance who did not greet this revelation with support. I think I would have had a very, very different response were I not celibate. When I get negative feedback, which I occasionally do from people who disagree with what the Church teaches, they say that I am being made a poster boy and that I'm being used – which is to say, conservative Christians are super happy to have somebody to point to whom they can say, ‘well look, here's one person who agrees with us.’Do you think being accused of being a ‘poster boy’ means that people are people angered by your celibacy? That's an interesting question. I think some people are angered on my behalf for what they perceive to be a sort of ‘Stockholm syndrome,’ and I've actually heard that phrase thrown around more than once. People see me defending the Church’s teachings on marriage, and on sexuality, and what they see is somebody who’s been taught to suppress his own nature for so long that he's actually come to believe the things he’s been told about himself – that’s what they see.What’s really there? I can’t sum myself up, but the point is that if any of the people who accuse me of being the poster boy or of having ‘Stockholm syndrome’ or anything like that were actually to read the things I’ve said, they would see that, number one, I don't sort of unquestioningly accept whatever I'm told about sexuality, but I always bring it back to my own experience. And number two, I very much admit the difficulties inherent in the life I live and I don’t pretend that they don't exist. And I don't think I would do either of those things if I had ‘Stockholm syndrome.’Your blog header is, ‘Catholic, Gay, and Feeling Fine,’ and you’ve been using the word ‘gay’ throughout our conversation so far. Do you have any thoughts on that word, as opposed to ‘same-sex attraction’ or other terms? Absolutely. That is another hard question, and it’s a question about which my position has been continually shifting, so I don’t feel as though I’ve found solid ground yet. I’ve always used the word. It used to be that I would use the word in writing, but sort of in my interior monologue and in private conversation I would say ‘same-sex attracted.’ I used to joke that the only reason I used the word 'gay' was so that I would tend to show up more on Google, which is only partially a joke, because you know if you’re going to use the tools of technology to evangelize, then you have to be savvy about what Google is going to find and what it isn’t.   But I guess the shift mainly happened as I began to approach being more public about it, because as I became more public I also came into contact more openly with people who identified as gay or who struggled with same-sex attraction, or whatever. And what I found was that a lot of them had a lot of resentment towards people who insisted on not using the word gay.Why did they have resentment? For a few reasons. It’s a really complicated topic, and I’m not sure how to distill what is offensive about it. One, is that it’s offensive to be told what you ought to be allowed to call yourself. And in fact, I rarely feel strongly about whether I should use the word gay or not, but the one time I do feel strongly about it is when somebody starts upbraiding me for it. Because it feels incredibly intrusive. This is a topic that gets very political very fast. It’s the sort of thing where people feel, and I think rightly, that they have been constrained to keep silent for most of their lives – and a lot of people have, whether it’s constrained by actual explicit homophobia among the people that they love and/or are related to, or whether it’s just sort of a general culture understanding that you don’t talk about this sort of thing. So you have a set of people who have felt this way for most of their lives, and then you have people saying ‘oh, well it’s sort of cool now if you talk about that, but just be sure you talk about it in this or that way.’ This is frustrating and comes across as very patronizing because these are people who don’t have any insight into the experience of what it is to be gay telling you what it is or is not ok to talk about, and what it is and is not ok to call yourself.Would you also apply that criticism to the Church who never uses the word ‘gay’ in her documents? I understand why She (the Church) doesn’t. I don’t know if that will continue to be the case. I don’t have any bitterness towards the Church as a whole in that way.   This is reason that I haven’t yet come to a solid opinion on this question – because the problem is that secular people and Christian people mean two different things by the word ‘gay.’Could you explain that a little more? It’s really hard to distill. But you know what’s at the heart of it? When I told my roommate I was gay, the first thing that he said to me was, ‘do you mean same-sex attracted?’ And that was actually the precisely wrong thing to say, and I don’t hold it against him. (Laughs) But the heart of it is that I was telling him this incredibly personal thing, and he was instructing me in the right way to feel about it, immediately, from the get-go. Now I think that one reason Christians tend to dislike the word ‘gay’ is because if somebody says that they are gay, then they are usually implying that it is an unchangeable aspect of their personality. Whereas the sort of default position among a lot of Christians is that homosexuality is changeable. The unspoken implication is that if you identify yourself as ‘gay,’ then you’re probably not trying hard enough to be straight. And I believe that this why it is so offensive to be told that they shouldn’t use the word gay.   It might be true that some people can change to some extent, but it’s extremely offensive to assume that the only reason somebody hasn’t changed is because they haven’t tried. And even though very few people would have the chutzpah to make that explicit, I do believe that that’s the belief that’s behind it.What do you think we should be doing as a Church, as a Christian community, to be helping people who struggle with homosexuality? That’s a really good question! I’ll start first by saying that I’m extremely grateful for the organization People Can Change, which is an organization founded precisely on the idea that radical change with respect to homosexuality is possible. I’m grateful for them not because they ‘made me straight’ or something, but because they gave me a space in which to work out some of my issues, many of which turned out not to be related precisely to homosexuality in particular, but were just sort of emotional issues that needed dealing with. I think a lot of gay men and women do have emotional issues that aren’t going to be dealt with if they’re told that everything is already ok. But on the other hand, this is dangerous because you have a lot of Christian people already assuming from the get-go that if somebody is homosexual, then they must have various and many emotional issues that need working on, and that’s not necessarily the case. (Laughs) So you see why this is difficult!If the understanding in the Christian world is that homosexuality is a “disorder,” and homosexual activity is a sin, then logically it would seem like as Christians, we would want to help our fellow Christians who are “dis-ordered” to be “ordered.” Do you think there’s a problem with that logic? I think there’s a problem with that phraseology. There’s a subtle but importance difference in saying that somebody has a disordered inclination and saying that somebody is disordered. The Church has to be clear with respect to ‘what is the nature of homosexuality itself,’ but can’t make a pronouncement on whether it is a mental disorder, for example. Many people assume that when the Church says ‘homosexuality consists of a disordered inclination,’ they take that word ‘disorder’ and assume that She means ‘mental disorder.’ But I think the Catechism has purposely phrased it in such a way that you can’t actually conclude that if you’re reading carefully. But it takes careful reading. The Church never changes her underlying principles, but when something new happens, it’s always a question of, ‘well, what do the underlying principles dictate in this particular situation?’ And a lot of the times it turns out that it doesn’t dictate what we thought it did but it takes a while to figure that out.What do you think the underlying principles are that are dictating what the Church is saying about homosexuality? That men are men, and women are women, and the two are not the same.Do you want to expound on that at all? Nooooo. (Laughs).   Well, what I think is that one, at the bottom of it, men and women are different. Number two, that eros is different from friendship, and number three, that physical acts have spiritual meanings. I think those things are the fundamental axioms that we have to work with here. And I think those things are precisely the things that are being argued about. I don’t think the Church is arguing about them, and I don’t think She should, because as far as I’m concerned, those things are absolutely essential to what the Church believes about people. But those things are very much being debated in the broader culture. I'll tell you how I see myself and what I do, which is not only with respect to homosexuality but with how I try to live the Catholic faith in general. I try to live my life by those principles that make sense to me as a human being, and are consonant with what I know about human nature and with what the world at large has discovered about human nature. However, I also believe that if anything is true, it is Christian: that every truth is a Christian truth, and that there can be no truth about human nature which is not consonant with what the Church teaches about human nature.This article was originally published on CNA June 30, 2015. Read more

Rome, Italy, Dec 18, 2015 / 06:25 pm (CNA).- On Wednesday Pope Francis met with members of the organization in charge of promoting the cause for canonization of Antoni Gaudi, known as “God's architect,” telling them that he hopes the cause moves forward quickly. “The meeting with Pope Francis was an unforgettable experience; he told me that ‘Gaudi is a great mystic’ and that he hopes he will be declared Venerable soon,” Jose Manuel Almuzara told CNA Dec. 18. Almuzara heads the Association for the Beatification of Antoni Gaudi. Originally started as a small group of laymen with a tiny budget, the association decided to investigate the possibility in of Gaudi's sainthood in 1992; the cause for his canonization was officially opened in Rome in 2003. In Rome this week for a conference and concert inspired by Gaudi, Almuzara was accompanied by the postulator of Gaudi’s cause for canonization, Silvia Correale, as well as other members of the association. Titled “Gaudi and mercy,” the event took place the afternoon of Dec. 15 at the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music. Almuzara was the speaker, and was joined by pianist Manuel José Ruíz Segarra and soprano Rocío Martínez for the concert. The group met with Pope Francis the next day during his Dec. 16 general audience. During the encounter, Almuzara said that he recited one of Gaudi’s more famous quotes: “The Church does not cease to build and therefore its head is the Pope – which means he builds bridges – churches are bridges to reach Glory.” He told Francis he appreciates his efforts to “build bridges,” and asked if the pontiff had read a book he had given to him in April titled “Sagrada Familia, Opus Magnum de Gaudí,” to which the Pope replied that he had. Almuzara explained that the association had wanted to participate in the Jubilee of Mercy in a concrete way, so they came up with the idea of the “Gaudi and mercy” workshop and invited members of universities, dioceses, institutions, schools, parishes from around the world to participate. When he handed the Pope a flier, Almuzara recalled how Francis said the workshop seemed like “an excellent idea.” “(Gaudi) is an example of life and work who took mercy into account, with a face to recognize, contemplate and serve; who throughout his life lived with intensity the signs of the presence and the closeness of God,” Almuzara said. The audience with the Pope, then, was a means of uniting with his desire to make the Church “a credible sign of mercy,” he said, adding that “we believe that Antoni Gaudi is an example through his life and work.” Gaudi, a Servant of God, was born in 1852 in Spain's autonomous community of Catalonia. He was a devout Catholic, which together with forms drawn from nature greatly influenced his architecture; he has received the nickname “God’s architect” due to the emphasis he placed on religion in his works. His most famous work is the basilica of the Sagrada Familia (Holy Family) in Barcelona. He began his work on the masterpiece in 1883, and in 1914 stopped all other projects to work exclusively on the masterpiece, to which he dedicated himself until his death in 1926. The church was consecrated by Benedict XVI in 2010, and named a basilica. Still under construction, it is expected to be completed by 2026, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Gaudí’s death. The basilica is known to have inspired conversions, one of whom was a Japanese architect who in 1998 was sent by the South Korean government to study Gaudi's work in Barcelona, in preparation for an exhibition on the Gaudi’s works. Given only one week to complete his work, the man, a Buddhist at the time, wrote a letter to the association several months later revealing that he was converting to Catholicism. That same Japanese architect designed a special ambo for Florence’s Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, which was completed and installed in time for Francis’ Nov. 10 visit to the Italian city. (Almuzara told us this during the Pope’s visit to Florence – we tried to track the architect down, but were never able to reach him.) Almuzara and Correale also had a meeting with Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation of the Causes of Saints, and the congregation’s secretary Archbishop Marcello Bartolucci, in order to discuss the progress of Gaudi’s cause. The meeting was “very cordial and helpful,” Almuzara said, adding that while no dates have been set, the cardinal encouraged them to continue working to advance the cause. Specifically, the cardinal encouraged them in their work compiling what is called the “la positio super vita, virtutibus et fama sanctitatis,” that is, the book compiling “the position on the life, virtues and reputation of holiness” of the person under question. Included in “the positio” are several things, which Almuzara listed as: a full exposition on the history of the cause or process; the declarations of the witnesses and the documentation on the person’s life, work and the reputation of holiness of the person’s intercession; the opinion on the person’s writings; the documented biography of the person and the information on the heroic virtues they exercised. Once the volume is completed it must be presented to the congregation, Almuzara said, explaining that if they recognize the heroic virtue of Gaudi, it will then be presented to the Pope, who would then authorize it’s publication, allowing Gaudi to be called “Venerable.” He also spoke of possible miracles attributed to Gaudi, saying that while there is “no miracle recognized as such” yet, certain favors have been recorded by individuals and families who have asked for Gaudi’s intercession and sent them in for study. As of now “there is no concrete date for Gaudi to be either a venerable or a blessed,” Almuzara said, but added “who can calculate or put a date on a miracle?” The miracle, he said, “we put in into the hands of Divine Providence, (because) only God knows the day and the hour.” “Therefore we remain vigilant,” he said, and, quoting a remark Gaudi had made about the amount of time needed to complete the Sagrada Familia, stressed that “our client is not in a hurry.” Read more