Richard Deanda’s fascination with the Shroud of Turin did not begin in a laboratory or with an effort to solve one of Christianity’s enduring mysteries.
It began when he was a boy, staying up past his bedtime to watch movies about the life of Jesus.
“Really, it’s more about the Passion that’s touched me, and the Shroud is evidence of the Passion,” Deanda said in an interview with the Estes Valley Voice.
The word passion comes from the Latin passio, meaning suffering. In the Christian tradition, it refers to the physical and spiritual suffering Jesus endured from the Last Supper to his crucifixion and death.
Deanda will bring his personal journey to Estes Park when he presents a program at 3 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 23, at Our Lady of the Mountains Catholic Church on the Shroud of Turin, the centuries-old linen cloth bearing the faint front-and-back image of a crucified man.
The 90-minute presentation includes a slide deck with dozens of photos. Deanda will also bring a full-size, museum-quality replica of the Shroud, large photographic negatives, and replicas of objects associated with Roman crucifixion, including a flagrum, or scourge, and nails.
“You can say so much quicker in an image than you can with your words,” Deanda said. “The image and the message support each other.”
A fascination that began in childhood
For Deanda, images have played an important role in his faith since childhood.
Growing up in Denver, he attended St. Joseph’s Catholic School. Around Easter, television networks would show films depicting the life and death of Jesus, and Deanda wanted to see the ending, even when it meant sneaking out of his bedroom after he had been told to go to sleep.
“I was just fascinated that Jesus would be willing to do that,” he said. “I guess it was because of his willingness that caught my attention as a little one.”
At St. Joseph’s Church, another image captured his imagination, a Pietà depicting Mary holding the body of Jesus after he was taken down from the cross.
Deanda remembers finding himself standing before it periodically.
“I thought the image was so beautiful,” he said. “It was so much art that really brought me in one way or another. It was art because art tells a story.”
Years later, that childhood interest in the Passion would intersect with the Shroud.
Deanda does not approach the cloth primarily as a scientist. He spent 25 years in parish ministry and earned a master’s degree in theology. He left parish ministry about two years ago and now travels to give presentations on theology, including programs about the Shroud.
“This is my day job now,” he said.
He typically gives two or three presentations a month and travels outside Colorado when opportunities arise. A recent trip took him to West Virginia for a three-evening parish mission.
While Deanda follows scientific research on the Shroud, he makes clear that his expertise and interest lie elsewhere.
“I’m not a scientist,” he said. “I understand a great deal of the science, but I don’t do the science.”
“My experience is more on the spiritual level.”
An image that remains unexplained
The Shroud is preserved in Turin, Italy, and has been the subject of scientific investigation, religious devotion, and controversy.
The Catholic Church has not formally declared it to be the authentic burial cloth of Jesus. Deanda describes its role within the church as that of an icon — something that can support faith — and notes that popes have traveled to venerate it.
The question of how the image formed is among the subjects Deanda will explore during his presentation.
He describes the body image as extraordinarily superficial, affecting only the uppermost fibrils of the linen threads. The bloodstains, he said, are different. They penetrate the cloth, and no body image appears beneath the bloodstained areas.
For Deanda, those details make the cloth increasingly intriguing.
“The more we learn, the more we study,” he said, “the less we know about it.”
Scientists and historians still disagree about the Shroud’s age and origins.
Radiocarbon testing conducted in 1988 dated the tested material to the Middle Ages. Shroud researchers have subsequently questioned whether the sample taken from one corner of the cloth was representative of the entire Shroud, and Deanda plans to address that controversy during his presentation.
He argues that other evidence deserves consideration alongside the carbon dating, including historical iconography that some Shroud researchers believe depicts features of the cloth centuries before the medieval period suggested by the carbon tests.
Deanda is particularly interested in another unusual characteristic: Researchers have found that variations in the Shroud’s two-dimensional image can produce three-dimensional information when processed using specialized image-analysis equipment.
“There’s 3D information in this two-dimensional cloth,” Deanda said.
For him, even accepting the medieval carbon date raises another question: How would someone centuries ago have produced such an image?
More than an authenticity debate
Yet Deanda’s presentation is ultimately about something larger than dating a piece of linen.
His interest returns to the same subject that captivated him as a boy watching biblical movies after bedtime — Christ’s Passion and what it means to Christian faith.
“We’re meant — we’re made — to discover our maker. That’s how we’re built, and that’s why we have inside of us a desire for happiness, because that happiness is heaven,” said Deanda.
“Desire itself is put into our heart so that we would know how to desire God. Because we’re made to seek him, that’s how we find fulfillment, is through him.”
Deanda believes human beings are created with an innate desire to search, question, and seek something beyond themselves, and telling the story of the Shroud offers another way to encourage that search.
He describes that quest as something placed within people so they will seek their creator and find fulfillment in him.
“If Jesus came to make the invisible God visible,” he said, “and then he leaves us this image that is totally astounding.”
Whether a person comes to the presentation as a believer, a skeptic, or simply someone curious about an object that has generated decades of scientific research, Deanda sees the unanswered questions as part of what makes the Shroud compelling.
“There’s no explanation for it,” he said. “That’s the thing that I think is so amazing about it.”
For Deanda, however, the Shroud ultimately points beyond itself.
His interest began as a child, wondering why Jesus would willingly endure the Crucifixion. Decades later, after a career in ministry and years spent studying the Shroud, he is still exploring that question.
Now he is bringing a life-size replica, photographs, and the story of that journey to Estes Park, inviting others to look at the image and consider the questions for themselves.
The program is free and open to the public.
What is the Shroud of Turin?
The Shroud of Turin is a centuries-old linen cloth bearing the faint front-and-back image of a man who appears to have suffered injuries consistent with crucifixion. It is preserved in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy.
The cloth measures about 14 feet long and 3.5 feet wide. Many Christians have traditionally associated it with Jesus Christ, believing it may be the burial cloth in which his body was wrapped after the Crucifixion. Its authenticity, however, has never been conclusively established.
The Shroud has generated extensive scientific, historical, and religious study. Researchers have examined its fibers, stains, image characteristics, and historical record in an effort to determine its age and explain how the image was formed.
One of the most significant modern investigations occurred in 1978, when the Shroud of Turin Research Project, known as STURP, was given direct access to the cloth. Researchers studied it around the clock for several days using photography and scientific instruments.
The Shroud has also been the subject of controversy. Radiocarbon testing conducted in 1988 dated samples of the cloth to the Middle Ages, providing strong evidence against a first-century origin. Some Shroud researchers have challenged those findings, arguing that the tested material may not have been representative of the entire cloth. The debate continues.
Among the Shroud’s unusual characteristics is the faintness of its image. Unlike a conventional painting, the figure does not have clearly defined outlines; the image gradually fades at its edges.
Researchers have also investigated the extremely shallow discoloration of fibers that form the body image and unusual three-dimensional characteristics that can be derived from variations in its image intensity.
For the Catholic Church, the question of authenticity is separate from the Shroud’s value as an object of contemplation. The Church has not formally declared the cloth to be the authentic burial shroud of Jesus.
For researchers, believers, and skeptics alike, two fundamental questions remain at the center of the centuries-old debate: Who is the man depicted on the Shroud, and how was his image created?
You must be logged in to post a comment.