Part 11 (2/2)
”What are you going to do about it?” Morelli wondered, sounding panicked.
”For starters, I'm going to call the archbishop,” the psychiatrist answered, taking out his cell phone. ”Other than that, I'm not sure there is anything I can do.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
Thursday, 5:00 P.M. P.M.
Archbishop Duncan's office, St. Patrick's Cathedral rectory Day 15 Fernando Ferrar's broadcast from outside Beth Israel had been aired on national television all afternoon. His reports showed Father Bartholomew at the window, naked from the waist up, holding his arms out as if he were crucified. Ferrar focused on the scourge wounds on Father Bartholomew's chest and the stigmata in his wrists. ”Has Christ returned?” Ferrar asked the audience. The news segment showed video clips of the ambulance rus.h.i.+ng Father Bartholomew to the Beth Israel emergency room on Sunday and of Dr. Castle leaving the hospital that evening. ”Is Father Bartholomew a madman?” Ferrar asked. ”Why won't the archbishop talk?”
The next images shown were of the Shroud of Turin. Ferrar narrated: ”Several knowledgeable experts have come forward to doc.u.ment that the wounds being displayed by Father Bartholomew resemble the Shroud of Turin.” The report next showed the main library on the Columbia University campus on New York's Upper West Side. ”Today I was able to interview Dr. Richard Whitehouse, a professor of medieval studies at Columbia University who has devoted decades to studying the Shroud of Turin.”
The report showed Ferrar interviewing Dr. Whitehouse in the professor's office. ”Tell me, Dr. Whitehouse, what first drew your attention to Father Bartholomew and the Shroud of Turin?”
”There's a long history of religious believers going back centuries exhibiting stigmata, most commonly the nail wounds Christ suffered on his wrists when he was crucified,” Whitehouse said. ”But when I saw your video of the wounds on Father Bartholomew's chest when he was in the hospital window today, I was surprised. Most people who experience the stigmata do not also experience wounds that look like the scourging that the gospels say Jesus Christ took at the pillar.”
”So you compared this to the Shroud of Turin?” Ferrar asked.
”Yes, I did,” Whitehouse acknowledged. ”Your video images weren't clear enough to say for certain, but the pattern of wounds on Father Bartholomew's chest and arms looks similar to the wounds we see in the Shroud of Turin.”
As Whitehouse said this, viewers saw side-by-side images: negative photographs of the torso of the man in the Shroud, and Father Bartholomew with his arms outstretched and chest naked in the window of his Beth Israel hospital room.
”It's also remarkable, don't you think, how much Father Bartholomew with his long hair and beard looks like Jesus?” Ferrar asked the professor.
Whitehouse proceeded carefully. ”Again, I can't say the man in the Shroud is Jesus. That is still the subject of a lot of debate. But I can say that the face of the man in the Shroud and Father Bartholomew with his long hair and beard do resemble each other.”
As Whitehouse answered, the camera showed close-ups of Father Bartholomew's face as seen through the hospital window and the face of the man in the Shroud.
”There you have it.” Ferrar concluded his report. ”Has Jesus Christ come back to life in the person of Father Bartholomew? Is the Second Coming upon us? So far, we have had no official comment from the Vatican.”
EARLY T THURSDAY EVENING in Rome, a television rebroadcast of Ferrar's news report from outside the hospital had a big impact at the Vatican. ”I think you need to hold a press conference as soon as possible and Father Morelli should attend to represent the Vatican,” Pope John-Paul Peter I told Archbishop Duncan over the phone. ”It's better if the press knows the Vatican is involved.” in Rome, a television rebroadcast of Ferrar's news report from outside the hospital had a big impact at the Vatican. ”I think you need to hold a press conference as soon as possible and Father Morelli should attend to represent the Vatican,” Pope John-Paul Peter I told Archbishop Duncan over the phone. ”It's better if the press knows the Vatican is involved.”
”What do you want us to say?” Duncan asked.
”I doubt if there is much you can say,” the pope answered. ”Let Castle do most of the talking. He will be limited by the doctor-patient relations.h.i.+p, so there is little he can disclose, but I think he will be successful in damping down the enthusiasm of the press to sensationalize Father Bartholomew, if that's possible to do.”
The press conference was set for 5 P.M. P.M. ET on Thursday in Archbishop Duncan's office at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. ET on Thursday in Archbishop Duncan's office at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City.
The press conference was packed. Multiple video crews broadcast back to their home studios through remote satellite uplinks via trucks parked on the side streets along the cathedral.
A table was set up in the front of the room for the press conference. Archbishop Duncan sat in the middle, flanked by Dr. Castle on his right and Father Morelli on his left.
The archbishop introduced the psychiatrist, allowing Dr. Castle to make a short introductory statement.
”Father Bartholomew was admitted to Beth Israel last Sunday under my care,” Castle told the press. ”There has been much speculation that Father Bartholomew's wounds are the wounds suffered by Jesus Christ two thousand years ago. There also has been some speculation that Father Bartholomew's wounds closely resemble the wounds displayed by the man in the Shroud of Turin. At this point, I can confirm neither.”
”Is this what the Vatican thinks?” A reporter had interrupted, determined to ask the first question of Father Morelli.
”The Vatican is working with Archbishop Duncan and Dr. Castle,” Morelli affirmed. ”The Vatican has come to no conclusions.”
”It sounds like the Catholic Church is stonewalling,” Fernando Ferrar told Archbishop Duncan aggressively. ”Why has the Vatican not responded to the questions from the news media about whether Father Bartholomew is manifesting the wounds that scholars like Dr. Whitehouse at Columbia see in the Shroud of Turin? Why have you waited until now to make a statement to the public?”
”If we were stonewalling, we wouldn't be giving this press conference,” Duncan said firmly. ”The Church is first and foremost concerned about Father Bartholomew's health. I can a.s.sure you that the Church is taking seriously all questions about Father Bartholomew, including questions that concern the Shroud of Turin. We will update you as soon as we have something more definitive to say. Right now, we would only ask the people who are coming to St. Patrick's Cathedral or Beth Israel Hospital to stay home. My office is working with the mayor and the New York Police Department to control crowds and make sure the streets of the city remain pa.s.sable. Father Bartholomew appreciates your prayers, but he asks you to stay home and pray, for the safety of everybody involved.”
”Does the archdiocese believe Father Bartholomew is Jesus Christ?” Ferrar asked in a follow-up question.
”The archdiocese and the Vatican have reached no conclusions about what is happening to Father Bartholomew. We are working with Dr. Castle and we will notify the public once we have anything more definitive to say.”
Ferrar persisted. ”Dr. Castle is a psychiatrist. Does that mean the Catholic Church thinks Father Bartholomew is crazy?”
”Again, we have no comment,” Archbishop Duncan said resolutely.
Fernando Ferrar was rapidly becoming an international press celebrity, as his television news reports about Father Bartholomew were rebroadcast around the world-in Italy by RAI, by Univision and Telemundo to the Spanish world in North America, and by countless other networks in dozens of different languages.
Rather than put the controversy regarding Father Bartholomew to rest, the press conference only fueled speculation and interest in the case.
That evening, the crowd in vigil outside Beth Israel grew to well over a thousand people.
Within twenty-four hours of Father Bartholomew's appearance in the window of his hospital room, over ten million viewers had viewed Ferrar's broadcasts on YouTube.
The next morning, the New York tabloids. .h.i.t the newsstands with top headlines that read SECOND COMING-IS JESUS IN NEW YORK CITY SECOND COMING-IS JESUS IN NEW YORK CITY? and BURIAL SHROUD OF CHRIST COMES TO LIFE IN NEW YORK PRIEST BURIAL SHROUD OF CHRIST COMES TO LIFE IN NEW YORK PRIEST? The front pages of both newspapers carried photographs of Father Bartholomew at the hospital window and the Shroud of Turin.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
Thursday night Dr. Stephen Castle's apartment, New York City 12:00 A.M. A.M. ET in New York City, 6:00 ET in New York City, 6:00 A.M. A.M. Friday morning in Rome Friday morning in Rome Days 1516 Gabrielli telephoned Castle from Bologna. ”I think I am very close to reproducing the Shroud using only materials and methods that were known in the thirteenth century. If I succeed, this will be the crowning achievement of my career.”
”How did you do it?” Castle asked.
”I have been experimenting with red ochre, a form of iron oxide that was a common paint at the time the Shroud was forged, and with vermilion, a red pigment that medieval painters typically formed from powdered mineral cinnabar, or red mercury sulfide. I also found a way to make linen photosensitive with a colloid mixture of various plants and mercury salts that alchemists used in the Middle Ages.”
”I'm following you so far,” Castle said.
”By covering a student with a combination of the red ochre and vermilion, I have managed to get the image to take hold by a combination of rubbing the linen against the student's body and exposing the linen, with the student underneath it, to the type of light sources a camera obscura lens concentrates from sunlight.”
”Okay,” Castle said. ”Then what?”
”I bake the linen in an oven and wash the result in water. The end result looks a lot like the Secondo Pia negative, with the image visible in the white highlights of what otherwise looks like a negative.”
”Are you sure this is the way the Shroud of Turin was produced?” Castle asked.
<script>