"Father Morelli, excuse me," Castle interrupted, "but Archbishop Duncan said you sometimes worked for the Vatican as a devil's advocate in cases where saints are being considered for canonization. Is that correct?"

"Yes, it is."

"Then what I don't understand is why you appear to be accepting Father Bartholomew's story so uncritically."

Morelli knew that was a good question. "Have you heard about the Shroud of Turin?" he asked in return.

Castle vaguely remembered that the Shroud of Turin was a relic the Catholic Church owned and that many believers claimed it was the burial cloth of the historical Jesus Christ.

Morelli confirmed this was correct. "The Shroud has an image on it of a crucified man that for centuries the Catholic Church has venerated as a relic. While the Church has never proclaimed the Shroud to be from the time of Christ or the actual burial cloth of Christ, millions of believers have concluded just that, over centuries."

"What's the point?" Castle asked.

"The point is that Father Bartholomew has begun to resemble the man in the Shroud of Turin, both in terms of his physical appearance and now in terms of his wrist injuries. This is what has drawn the Vatican's attention."

Morelli pulled two more photographs from his briefcase and handed them to Castle one at a time. "This is what Bartholomew looked like before the accident and this is what he looks like today."

Castle was shocked. What he saw in the first photograph was a smiling young man in his early forties who looked confident of his future. What he saw in the second photograph was a much older man. Bartholomew had grown a long beard and his hair flowed down to his shoulders.

"When were these two photos taken?"

"The first was about four years ago, before his accident," Morelli explained. "The second was taken yesterday, in the hospital."

Castle could not believe the difference. "In four years, the man in the photographs had gone from a clean-shaven young man who appeared alive and full of health, to a bearded, long-haired, much older man who looked very troubled with pain and sorrow."

"Now look at this." Morelli handed Castle yet a third photo. "This is the image of the man in the Shroud of Turin. When you meet Father Bartholomew, it should be obvious how closely today Father Bartholomew has come to look exactly like the man in the Shroud."

[image]

The image of the man in the Shroud of Turin looked ghostly, yet it had a clearly photographic quality about it.

At first the face looked blurry to Castle, but the more he studied it, the more distinct the facial features became to him. Studying the face, Castle began to see the man many believe to be Jesus. The man in the Shroud appeared to have his eyes closed, as if in sleep or in death. Somehow the face conveyed a quiet dignity in its strong, square lines and elongated rectangular shape. The nose was prominent, but well proportioned. The mouth was closed in what looked like a thoughtful repose. The man in the Shroud looked almost as if he could be sleeping, not dead. Still, Castle could read sorrow and pain in the face, and he noted what looked like white streaks, possibly of blood, that streamed from the forehead and seemed to saturate the long hair that draped down on each side of the man's face.

"How is this photograph possible if the Shroud is two thousand years old?" Castle asked. "Photography was not invented until the 1820s." Castle was struggling to understand how this image had such photographic qualities when it was made either 1,800 years before photography was discovered, if the Shroud was the actual burial cloth of Christ, or some five hundred to six hundred years before photography was discovered, if the Shroud was a medieval forgery.

"It's complicated," Morelli answered. "But to give you the simple explanation, the Church has discovered over time that the Shroud itself is a sort of negative. Surprisingly, the man in the Shroud is most clearly seen when you look at a photographic negative of the Shroud."

"When did the Church discover the photographic qualities of the Shroud?"

"It wasn't until 1898, when Secondo Pia, an Italian amateur photographer, was allowed to photograph the Shroud. Working with his negatives in the darkroom, Secondo Pia was shocked when he realized his negative had produced a face. He said he felt that in his darkroom he was looking back centuries, the first person since Christ died to be looking into the living face of the Lord. Pia realized that the image of the man on the Shroud became easier to see when the light values are reversed, such that the brownish red lines on the Shroud show up as highlights in the photographic negative. In other words, the image of the crucified man that is somehow imprinted into the linen of the Shroud is most clearly seen when the brownish red lines that your eye sees as the image on the Shroud are reversed to white in the photographic negative."

"So what I am looking at here is the negative that results when a photograph of the Shroud is taken, is that correct?" Castle asked, wanting to make sure he understood what Morelli was attempting to explain.

"That's right," Morelli said. "You're looking at a photographic negative. The brownish red lines visible to the naked eye on the Shroud show up in a photographic negative as white highlights. You can easily imagine that Secondo Pia's contemporaries in the late 1890s accused him of having perpetrated a fraud. They claimed he concocted the image of Jesus Christ that you are looking at, using darkroom tricks to produce an image that was not visible to the naked eye looking at the Shroud. Pia's results weren't accepted until 1931, when Giuseppe Enrie, an Italian professional photographer, was permitted to photograph the Shroud a second time and got the same results."

From his briefcase, Morelli handed Castle a second image of the face of the man in the Shroud. "Take a look at this image and compare it with the other. I think comparing the two will give you a better idea how the process works. This is what a photographic print of the Shroud looks like. The actual Shroud looks much the same, except that the lines that mark the face would be brownish red, not the black and white of the photographic print you see here."

[image]

[image]

Castle looked back and forth between the two images, appreciating how Secondo Pia's photographic process had worked.

"What you are looking at now in the photographic print is how the face of the man appears on the linen of the Shroud to the naked eye," Morelli explained. "Looking at the Shroud with your naked eye, the face of the man in the Shroud looks faint-so faint that at first you might not even see him. But then, after you study the image for a while, the face becomes clearer, as you begin to be able to see and distinguish the brownish red lines that appear on the surface."

"So you're telling me that whoever painted the Shroud painted a negative?" Castle asked.

"Yes," Morelli said, pleased to see Castle was getting the point. "That's exactly what I am saying. In other words, if you a.s.sume some medieval painter forged the Shroud, that painter would have had to be brilliant enough to understand how photographic negatives work, even though they hadn't been invented yet. Why wouldn't a medieval forger simply have painted a positive image onto the burial cloth, the way a painter portrays a life scene the way the eye sees it? n.o.body in the Middle Ages had ever seen a photographic negative."

"But not all photographs require a negative," Castle observed. "Daguerreotypes are one of the earliest forms of photographs and they don't require a negative as an intermediary step in the photographic process. If I am right, in a daguerreotype, a positive image is formed directly on a plate that is coated with light-sensitive chemicals."

"You are exactly right," Morelli said. "Negatives are only used in photographic processes where the image is imprinted first on an intermediary surface that has been treated with photosensitive chemicals, like silver halide. There is also no negative formed in digital photography. If the painter of the Shroud was medieval, that person had to be brilliant enough to antic.i.p.ate not only the invention of photographic processes that required negatives as an intermediary step in producing the positive photographic image, but that negatives would be a surviving photographic process. Negatives, it turns out, have been the dominant photographic process from the early Kodak cameras up until the recent advent of digital cameras. But my guess is that photographic negatives will fade away in our current era of digital imaging."

"So you recommend I should study the negative images of the Shroud if I want to see the man more clearly?"

"Yes, that is exactly what I am saying," Morelli said in confirmation once again. "I want you to have the clearest possible idea what the man in the Shroud of Turin looks like, for a very important reason."

"What's that?" Castle asked.

"I believe that when you meet Father Bartholomew you will agree he looks today just like the man in the Shroud of Turin. Father Bartholomew has the same double-pointed beard with a fork at the chin. They both have long hair covering their ears and draping over their shoulders. They both have the same face with square lines. If you permit me to interpret how they look, you will see in both the same quiet dignity, the same suggestion of inner peace despite the obvious pain and suffering. The same wrinkles in the brow."

Castle quickly got the point. "So, what you are telling me is that if the man in the Shroud is Jesus, then Bartholomew today looks just like Jesus did the day he died. Is that right?"

"Yes, that's precisely the point," Morelli said slowly. "The Vatican is concerned that Bartholomew is becoming Jesus. What we don't know is whether this is a psychological process or some other reality we don't understand."

With that, Castle appreciated even more deeply why the pope had asked for his help. "What you also don't know is whether the Shroud is authentic or a fake. Isn't that also what you are telling me?"

"Yes, it is, but before we get to that point, I want you to look at one more image." Morelli pulled from his briefcase yet another photo of the Shroud of Turin. "This is a close-up photographic negative of the arms of the man in the Shroud. It shows the nail wounds on the wrists and the blood flows on the forearms."

[image]

Castle examined the image carefully. Reading the medical file, Castle had observed that Father Bartholomew's wounds were in his wrists, not in the palms of the hands. It was the same with the Shroud. The nail wounds were through the wrists, not the hands, and they looked remarkably like the stigmata wounds Bartholomew had suffered in his wrists. Anatomically, that made sense to Castle. The wounds in the arms could not have gone through the palm of the hand. The nails had to be driven through the wrist. Otherwise, the weight of the body would have ripped the nails loose.

Castle's medical mind envisioned how a nail driven through the junction of bones in the wrist would hold an adult male's weight. "A nail through the palm of the hand above the wrist would tear free over time," he suggested. "The nail would have to be placed just right in the wrist. If the nail hit the major arteries in the hand, the person being crucified might die before they were ever lifted to the cross. Nailing a person to a cross must have been an expert operation that required experienced executioners."

"Right," Morelli confirmed. "The Romans crucified hundreds of thousands of people. They were very good at crucifixion. Crucifixion was designed to be a brutal and humiliating form of death, typically reserved for hardened criminals or traitors foolish enough to foment insurrection against Rome."

"How long was Christ on the cross?" Castle asked.

"Christ hung on the cross for at least three hours," Morelli answered. "He was not dead when the sun was going down. The problem was that Christ was crucified on Friday and he had to be buried before the Jewish Sabbath began, at sundown on Friday. According to Jewish law, Christ's body had to be taken from the cross and buried before the start of the Sabbath, which means the followers of Jesus did not have much time. Before the Roman soldiers allowed his followers to take the body off the cross, they wanted to make sure he was dead. So a Roman centurion took his lance and pierced it through Christ's side, puncturing his heart. Only then did the Roman soldiers give Christ's followers permission to remove his body from the cross."

Looking closely, Castle marveled at how correct anatomically the Shroud image appeared to be. The exit wound on the back of the hand on top-really the left hand in a Shroud image that needed to be reversed right to left like most negatives-looked like an exit wound. It appeared the nail had been driven through where several small carpal bones meet in the wrist, below the metacarpal bones that branch to the fingers, on the thumb side of the hand. The thumbs in both hands appeared to have been pulled back toward the palms of the hands such that they were not visible when the hands were viewed from above. "Driving the nails through the wrists in this area probably damaged the median nerve, with the result that the thumb would have been pulled under the palm in an action not unlike an automatic muscle reflex. So, you're probably also asking me how any artist at the time of Christ-or even during the Middle Ages-would have been sufficiently skilled in medicine as to have captured this anatomically important detail. Is that right?"

"Yes," Morelli answered without hesitation. "How the Shroud of Turin was created is hard to explain. The Shroud provides a remarkably detailed view of the crucifixion of Jesus as described in the Gospels and the practice itself as described in contemporary Roman accounts. Moreover, the Shroud is anatomically correct, even by our current medical standards, in doc.u.menting the effects of crucifixion on the human body."

"Where is the Shroud now?" Castle asked.

"The Catholic Church owns the Shroud of Turin," Morelli explained. "It is kept in the Chapel of the Shroud in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy. Typically, the Shroud is kept locked away in a controlled-atmosphere vault that the scientists have designed to maximize preservation of the cloth."

"Does the Catholic Church have an official position on whether the Shroud of Turin is the authentic burial cloth of Christ?" Castle asked.

"The Shroud is one of the Catholic Church's most treasured ancient relics," Morelli answered. "Officially, the Church maintains the Shroud is a venerated object, but there is no Church declaration or judgment that the Shroud is authentic. Officially, the Church's position is that no relic or object is needed to justify faith in Jesus Christ. Still, many Catholics and non-Catholics believe the Shroud of Turin is the actual burial cloth of Jesus Christ."

Before he became an atheist, Castle had been raised an Episcopalian and he was not brought up to put much trust in relics. "I seem to remember reading that there was carbon dating done on the Shroud and that the scientists doing the testing determined that the Shroud came from the medieval period, that it simply did not trace back two thousand years to Jesus."

"Yes," Morelli acknowledged. "That's right, but several more recent studies have challenged the carbon-dating procedures. Whether the Shroud is the burial cloth of Christ is still very much being debated, even within the Church. Archbishop Duncan is arranging for you to meet Father Middagh, one of the Church's most knowledgeable experts on the Shroud in the world. Let's save the question of the carbon dating until we meet with Father Middagh. For now, please just take it that the experts you will meet consider the carbon-testing results showing the Shroud to be a medieval fake are now in question. My job here today is to give you enough information about Father Bartholomew to get you to agree to take the case."

"What is it that the Vatican wants me to conclude?" Castle asked, seriously wanting to get to the point. "Is the Vatican trying to prove that Father Bartholomew is a fake or that he has become Jesus? Is the question whether or not Jesus is somehow taking over the body of Father Bartholomew? You've got to level with me, Father Morelli. What does the Vatican believe has happened as a result of Bartholomew's near-death experience? Does the Vatican believe that Father Bartholomew has become more than a healer, that he has somehow become the crucified Jesus Christ once again reincarnated?"

"Truthfully, the Vatican does not know what is happening with Father Bartholomew," Morelli said honestly. "The pope asked me the same questions you just posed. I have no answers and neither does the pope. That's why I am here."

"Okay, then, let me try to explain to you how I proceed as a psychiatrist," Castle said slowly, wanting to make sure there were no misunderstandings. "You have to understand that the human subconscious is very strong, strong enough to cause many people to modify their physical appearance based on this or that neurosis. My suspicion from looking at these photos and listening to your story is that Bartholomew has a mental condition that looks maybe like a neurosis, or maybe even a more serious psychosis."

"I understand," Morelli said.

"What interests me is that Father Bartholomew's mental illness involves his religious beliefs. Father Bartholomew's case is precisely what I write about in my books. What I suspect is that Bartholomew is undergoing what is commonly known as a multiple personality disorder. His mental illness may cause Bartholomew to imitate Christ-even physically-but I cannot believe this man is somehow mystically becoming Jesus Christ, in real life, today, in New York City. If that's what the Catholic Church wants me to conclude, I'm not your guy."

"The Catholic Church has centuries of experience of dealing with clergy, and in those hundreds of years some of the clergy have had psychological problems, just like any other group of people over hundreds of years of experience," Morelli said. "The Catholic Church also has centuries of dealing with mystics and through those centuries many mystics have demonstrated the stigmata."

"What's your point?" Castle asked directly.

"My point is that sometimes psychology does not explain all of religious experience," Morelli answered equally directly.

"That leads me to conclude that you believe the Shroud is indeed the actual burial cloth of the historical Jesus," Castle said, wanting to make sure he understood Morelli.

"Yes, I do," Morelli admitted. "I struggled with the evidence for years, but finally I concluded I could not explain by any scientific methods how the Shroud of Turin had been created, regardless of how brilliant the forger might have been."

"And you also believe Father Bartholomew died and returned to life, much as Jesus Christ himself did," Castle said, pressing on.

"I'm not as sure of that," Morelli admitted. "I didn't get to be an advisor to the pope, especially not this pope, by giving him easy answers. My training is to question everything. The Vatican and I believe we need your expertise to get to the bottom of what is really going on with Father Bartholomew."

Castle was beginning to feel more comfortable about the a.s.signment, but there was still something he had to be clear about.

"One more thing," he stressed. "I can't promise you I can cure Father Bartholomew of whatever is going on. Father Bartholomew could spend years with me in therapy and I still can't promise you I could cure him. Years from now, he might be much worse than he is today."

"I understand."

"Okay, then," Dr. Castle said, having made up his mind. "I will take the case, but it will cost the Catholic Church a lot of money for me to do so."

"The Vatican is prepared to pay your fees."

"And I reserve the right to publish a book on my findings, with or without the approval of the Catholic Church."

"The pope is prepared to agree to that as well."

"One more thing."

"What's that?"

"I want to speak with the pope myself. I spoke to him when he was Cardinal Vicente and I want to talk with him again before I take on this a.s.signment."

"The pope wants to talk with you, too, but he wants to talk with you after you meet with Father Bartholomew."

"Okay." Castle agreed. "I will do that. But I have one last concern."

"What's that?"

"You are sure the pope doesn't want to have it both ways?" Castle asked cynically.

"What do you mean?"

"If I conclude Bartholomew has a mental illness, the Vatican could always just say, 'Castle is not a Catholic and he doesn't believe in G.o.d. What did you expect him to find?'"

"In the final a.n.a.lysis," Morelli said seriously, "you're the doctor and the public will believe you, regardless of what the archbishop, the pope, or me-the used-to-be devil's advocate, as you put it-has to say."

"Okay, then. I will agree to see Father Bartholomew as a patient."

"Thank you," Morelli said in conclusion, reaching out to shake Dr. Castle's hand. "I look forward to working with you."

CHAPTER FIVE.

Tuesday Dr. Stephen Castle's office, New York City Day 6 Morelli brought Father Bartholomew to Dr. Castle's office in a wheelchair. The priest was dressed in a full-length hospital robe, not his black priest's suit and black shirt with its Roman collar.

Scrutinizing Bartholomew carefully, Castle realized how deceptive were the wheelchair, the hospital robe, and the heavy bandages on the priest's arms. Far from being weak, Bartholomew had an athletic build.

Judging the priest to be less than six feet tall, Castle could see that Bartholomew, a mature man in his early forties, was still very strong, fully muscled in the upper body and shoulders. Though he was sitting in the wheelchair, the hospital robe appeared to cover well-exercised legs. If Bartholomew had ever played football, Castle was sure he had been a guard or a tackle, not the quarterback. Castle guessed the priest was no stranger to the gymnasium and he wondered if the priest had a history of weight lifting. Castle immediately suspected Bartholomew's physical strength and stamina had been critical to his ability to survive the violent car accident that had nearly killed him, as well as the stigmata that were afflicting him now.

After Morelli excused himself to the waiting room, Castle settled into his chair. "I a.s.sume you know why you are here, Father Bartholomew," Castle said.

"Archbishop Duncan asked me to see you," he replied, "and you can call me by my first name, Paul, since I a.s.sume we are going to get to know one another pretty well."

"Very well, Paul," Castle began, taking Bartholomew's file from the coffee table and paging through his notes. "You can call me Dr. Castle."

Castle was not interested in his patients becoming his friends. Besides, he knew from decades of experience that the process psychiatrists call "transference" would begin almost immediately. Once transference began, most patients would begin imagining the psychiatrist understood their inner thoughts and feelings, believing the psychiatrist was the only person in the world who could truly understand them and help them.

Both Bartholomew's forearms were heavily bandaged. Long white gloves with the fingers cut out had been drawn over his hands to help mask the sight of the bandages that reached from the fingers of both hands up the forearms to his elbows.

In person, the impression that Bartholomew looked remarkably like images of Jesus Christ was unavoidable. Bartholomew's long brown hair and thick reddish beard framed a long, thin face with prominent cheekbones. The beard ended with a double-pointed fork at the chin, just as Father Morelli pointed out with the man in the Shroud. Bartholomew's mouth was well defined by a neatly trimmed mustache. His hair was twisted in a braid that trailed down his back to beyond his waist. Bartholomew's soft brown eyes looked out from beneath bushy eyebrows that also appeared to need a serious tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. In the two thousand years since the death of Christ, the image of Jesus had become an icon. Now something resembling that icon was sitting across from Castle as a patient in his treatment room.

Bartholomew may have felt this change in his appearance had come upon him as a result of his mystical experience on the operating table. But Castle knew better.

From decades of clinical practice, Castle knew without doubt that the priest's exterior impression reflected his inner psychological realities. Castle speculated that Bartholomew, now in the grips of his mental illness, was becoming his mental image of what Christ had looked like in life. As an accomplished psychiatrist, Dr. Castle did not believe he was looking at the physical manifestation of the historical Jesus Christ in modern-day New York. He was simply looking at Father Paul Bartholomew's idea of what he imagined Jesus Christ looked like, perhaps heavily influenced by the Shroud. Castle made a note on Bartholomew's file to remind him to find out when Bartholomew had first seen the Shroud and to inquire about what impact the Shroud had had on the priest.