Sacred relic

The shroud will be on public view for six weeks at the Turin Cathedral. It's kept in a bullet-proof and climate-controlled case.

Discovered in the mid-14th century in the French city of Troyes, the Shroud of Turin is said to have been imprinted with an image of Christ's crucified body.

In 1898, Secondo Pia, a lawyer and amateur photographer, obtained a negative image of the 4.4-meter shroud in which Jesus was buried with far more striking features than those of the natural, sepia-colored positive.

The real thing or a medieval fake?

Samples of the blood-stained fabric were analyzed in 1988 using radiocarbon dating. The analysis determined that the fibers in the cloth date from the Middle Ages, but those findings have been challenged. The Vatican has never confirmed the shroud's authenticity.

Turin Cardinal Severino Poletto, who led the opening ceremony in Turin's cathedral Saturday, referred to the debate over the shroud's authenticity, saying it was "not up to the church but for science to decide."

Poletto told ANSA news agency that the shroud was a testament to "hidden suffering endured in silence between tears and despair."

He recalled that the late pope John Paul II said the shroud evoked thoughts of the "millions of men who die of hunger, of the horrors perpetrated in so many wars (and) the brutal exploitation of women and children."

Pope Benedict XVI will travel to Turin to see the shroud on May 2. Benedict said his visit would be "a propitious occasion to contemplate this mysterious visage that speaks silently to the heart of men, inviting them to recognize the face of God."

nrt/AFP/AP

Editor: Sonia Phalnikar