Guy: [00:00:00] Hi, I am Guy Powell, and welcome to the next episode of the Backstory on the Shroud of Turin. If you haven't already done so, please visit guy powell.com and sign up for more episodes and and podcasts. I as I am the author of the newly released book, the Only Witness, which is a Christian historical fiction on the shroud of Turin tracing a possible history of the shroud.

Today we're speaking with Alessandro Malin Truco, and he is a longtime researcher and speaker on the shroud. Let me tell you a little bit about Alessandro. He was born and born in Rome, Italy, and lives in Italy today. He is a doctoral degree in spiritual theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, and his dissertation is on the experience.

Of Jesus's death. He is been teaching Catholic religion since [00:01:00] 1994 and in, and since 2004 he's been at the EO Scientifico, Vito Ro in Cino. I don't know if I said that but I Yes, it's close. Okay. Thank you. So he's been researching the shrouds since 1979, which is right after the stir, and he's been doing that with the Roman Center of Sin Synology, and collaborated in the research with his father, who is Dr.

Luigi Malin Truco on the physical causes of Jesus' death. He's spoken at many international conferences on the shroud and has published several theological studies on the shroud. Alessandro, it's so good to have you today tell us a little bit about your backstory on getting involved in studying the shroud.

Okay, guy,

Alessandro: thank you very much for your invitation. I came to the Shroud following in my father's footsteps. [00:02:00] In the 1970s, there was a televised exposition of the shroud. In 1973, my father began to take an interest. We are a Catholic family. My father was a doctor, and he was also very interested in the medical and scientific aspects that could be studied on the shroud.

And so in 1977, he joined the Roman Center of Synology, which had been founded and directed by Monza Julio Ricci. I finished my high school studies and in 1979 I also joined this center where I stayed for two years. While during those two years I was studying political science. After that, I went on to study theology and philosophy, and I started to collaborate with my father on his research from the library of the Gregorian University and doing translations of studies from English into Italian.

So I continued my studies. I started teaching [00:03:00] after I finished my degree, my ate in theology in 1999. I also started some research activities and public lectures with the Orvieto Congress in 2000 and the Paris Congress in 2002, and I collaborated with the first Shroud Science group. We took a study to the Dallas Congress in 2005, together with Ju Fanti and many other researchers.

That has been my path. Currently. I have stopped for three years, from 2017 to 2020 from teaching to devote myself to doctoral work, and I was able to research Jesus' death. His experience based on studies of the shroud and the gospels as documents for his human and spiritual experience.

Guy: Yeah.

Interesting. Great background. Now your father is has done a lot of study on the shroud as well. So tell us about your [00:04:00] father Luigi's medical studies on the causes of Jesus' death.

Alessandro: My father Luigi was a radiologist head physician at St. Peter's Hospital in Rome. During the years when he was at the Roman Center of Synology, together with Mons and Richie, they thought of studying the hypothesis of a British doctor in the mid 18 hundreds before the first photograph was taken of the shroud.

This doctor, whose name was William Stroud, had hypothesized that Jesus' death was due to an infarction and therefore to an effusion of blood in the pericardium, A hemo pericardium. So he set out to study this hypothesis, and he first brought his studies to the Congress of Bologna here in Italy in 1981.

His hypothesis was much debated. It found a lot of opposition, but it was published by a very important magazine in the Catholic Church, which is Alica of the [00:05:00] Jesuits, and so it had great media coverage. Journalists and television stations from all over the world came to interview my father in the early 1980s.

My father continued his research until 1992. Then unfortunately, he died. We are the family. My mother and children. My siblings published his work in two editions. This is the English Language Edition. Most recently in 2010. His theory is that Jesus had a heart attack at the Garden of Olives at Gethsemane after the last supper.

When he prays intensely and feels anguish and fear falls to the ground and sweats, blood then has a hemato Rosas, this heart attack would've developed over the time from the prayer in Gethsemane to the crucifixion causing the pericardium, which is a membrane that surrounds the heart to flood with blood.

At that point came a cardiac arrest [00:06:00] due to a cardiac tamponade. That is the pressure of the blood in the pericardium blocked the heart, and there was a sudden death. We all know from the gospel accounts that Jesus died suddenly, even surprisingly, even for Pontius and before the two thieves who had been crucified beside him.

In fact, the Roman soldiers ended the life of the two thieves by breaking their legs while they made an assessment of death to Jesus with a lance blow to his side. The wound to the side is very important for these studies because from this wound, which on the shroud can be seen very well, it is a wound, one centimeter high and four centimeters wide, which remained open, not healed.

Therefore means that it was inflicted in a man who was already dead. A corpse, a great quantity of blood came out, but decomposed blood that is a red [00:07:00] component and a serous transparent component. St. John in the gospel says, blood and water. Blood and water came out at once in this precise order. First the blood and then the water.

And in fact, on the shroud, you can see this. The medical explanation is that this blood had broken down with the red part, the bloody heavier part, which was more downwards, and the lighter, serous transparent part, which looked like water upwards. The lance blow pierced the pericardium membrane, and under the pressure of this amount of decomposed blood came out immediately, which is very strange for a corpse.

A very important question in my opinion about the shroud is precisely whether the man whose footprints remained on the shroud was a dead man, a corpse. The medical evidence says yes because [00:08:00] there are precisely these signs of death, and therefore a diagnosis can be made starting from the analysis of the images that can be seen on the shroud.

Thanks to the many elaborations made, for example, already by Stir in 1978, but then by many other scholars, photographers, image processors, and other ways of studying the image. This theory of death by hemo pericardium is not shared by all scholars. However, according to the research my father did, using a very deductive method, it is very congruent with the accounts in the gospels.

Therefore explains in detail exactly what may have happened. There is a key point in this research, which is that of time, the time it took for this hemo pericardium to develop. For according to tradition, it is said that Jesus had his last supper on holy Thursday, and then went to pray in the garden of olives.

Was immediately [00:09:00] arrested, tried tortured, scoured, crowned with thorns carried along the way of the cross with the patibulum to the crucifixion and crucified and everything would have to have happened from Thursday evening after dinner to Friday afternoon. If this were the case, the time of development of this pathology, the hamo pericardium, would not be sufficient.

There is another possibility, which has been studied by a French scholar, Annie Jobair, who discovered that there was another calendar in use by the Essenes and that Jesus could have celebrated the Last Supper according to this other calendar, by having the Last Supper on Tuesday evening. This possibility, which has also been recognized by Joseph Ratzinger in his book, Jesus of Nazareth, would explain the time required for the development of this disease and explain the whole situation from a medical point of view.

I hope I have been clear in my [00:10:00] explanation because my specialization is not medicine, but I think I have made my point a little.

Guy: Yeah. Interesting. Now you were a teacher of Catholic religion in high school. So how do you use the shroud today in your work as a teacher? In high school in Italy,

Alessandro: the situation about teaching of religion in Italy agreed between the Italian state and the Catholic church in state schools is a very particular situation.

It is not simple because the agreement between the state and the church in Italy is always in question for public opinion. Not everyone agrees. I must say that the work done on the figure of Jesus through the shroud is one of the most effective with students. I work with adolescents, students between the ages of 14 and 19 in a scientific high school, and therefore of a very scientific mentality.

Also very [00:11:00] technological. The presentation of the Shroud document alongside those of the gospels works very well because it is possible to study it scientifically as has been done since the end of the 18 hundreds, since 1898 with the first photograph taken by second Pia. And so there are possibilities for comparison using the tools and methods of science.

The students really appreciate concreteness. The shroud is a very concrete object. While, for example, they see the Bible as a written text where the words sometimes they think cannot correspond to a reality. And instead, the shroud is a reality that they can observe, analyze, and judge with rational instruments, which are the same ones they use for many of their scientific studies.

So I would say that it lends itself very well to bringing the students closer to the [00:12:00] figure of Jesus, first of all, on a certainly historical level, and then as a religious message, clearly leaving the freedom of choice and judgment to each one, whether or not to also share the religious contents of the message of Jesus found in the gospels.

I repeat it is an excellent teaching tool. It works very well with teenage boys studying science subjects.

Guy: Yeah. Interesting. Now your doctoral research was on the spiritual theology and the physical and psychologically experience of of the death of Jesus. Tell us a little bit about that.

Alessandro: First of all, I would like to explain how I understand spiritual theology from my point of view. It is the theological study of religious experience. It includes many components. For example, psychology too, but it also has a strong biblical component. I poured my possible [00:13:00] idea of doing a PhD in this specialization into this subject, which had been close to my heart for many years, as I was saying, also taking up some of my father's work, but not only I compared the shroud and the gospels as documents of Jesus' death.

Of course, I had to show that the shroud is a reliable, trustworthy document. There is no official declaration of authenticity on the shroud. There are many doubts on the part of many people, but today we know that the only scientific study that really questioned the shroud, which was the Carbon 14 dating done in 1988, we now know is no longer considered reliable.

It has been clearly demonstrated. All other paths pursued to verify. The origin of this document seemed to lead to the answer that this may indeed have been the burial shroud in which Jesus' body was wrapped in the tomb. Comparing the [00:14:00] gospels with the shroud. This emerges very clearly. I have used this methodology not only the Gospels, but also the Bible, even the Old Testament.

There are traces of prophecies, for example, in the songs of the Servant of Yahweh, in the book of Isaiah, but also in other texts, even in the Psalms and in other texts too, which anticipate the results of what can be read on the shroud of what was the passion of the Messiah. Interesting because it allows us to counter a prejudice, to refute a prejudice.

Which is that some biblical texts were written in order to prove a posterior things that in reality would not have happened, but had to be shown as if they were true. I give an example, the wound in the side, which I mentioned earlier in the Gospel of John, it is written that this blow of the spear, which caused blood and water to spill out, corresponds to two prophecies.

One is by [00:15:00] Zacharia. I am going from memory now, but I remember well by the prophet Zacharia. Some think that it was an invention of the evangelist John to make the death of Jesus coincide with these prophecies. Instead, the shroud shows precisely that this really happened, and so it matches the evangelist's account, which he has placed under an oath of truth.

John says that he swears that what he recounts really happened. He saw it with his own eyes. It is very interesting that this oath of truth is the only time it is used in all the gospels, what is called now, I do not get the technical term PAC's Lagoon. In short, it is Unum. It exists only once. Even a biblical scholar of the gospels who is a Protestant and evangelical like Charles Dodd said that this oath of truth is very important.

We have the possibility by comparing the accounts of the gospels with the shroud to [00:16:00] verify the accounts of the gospels through the shroud and the shroud through the accounts of the gospels. I particularly focused on Jesus' experience of his own death from a human point of view. Thus what he experienced on a physical level, what he experienced on a psychological level, and how he then transformed this into an experience, a profound spiritual religious experience.

In fact, a central point of my study was the consciousness that Jesus had of his own death, a very clear consciousness. He knew that he had to go through this kind of event, this kind of death. He knew it was necessary according to the will of God the father, and he chose to adhere to this design thus freely handing himself over to death, not because he was taken and condemned against his will, but it was he who accepted to be crucified.

This study has allowed me to get closer to other aspects [00:17:00] besides consciousness. In particular, the emotions that Jesus experienced in the face of his death. I have followed two paths, one through the texts of the gospels. I chose something very interesting in my opinion, which I had been following for many years.

Two tools used in psychology by a famous American psychologist, Paul Eckman, who is the consultant of the Pixar film Inside Out, and also the star of the television series Lie to Me. He has developed a website on the internet. Called the Atlas of Emotions, which he designed together with the Dalai Lama, the religious leader of Tibetan Buddhists.

In this atlas of emotions, he has described five groups of primary emotions, which are joy, sadness, disgust, anger, and fear, and a whole family. Within these primary emotions of other secondary [00:18:00] emotions, ranging from minimum to maximum intensity. I applied this reading grid to the texts of the gospels using the research tools I had at my disposal, which are the Bible works software, which are the great lexicon of the New Testament.

And I did a search on all the terms used in the gospels of the passion of Jesus filtered through this lens, which was Paul Ekman's Atlas of Emotions, and I found that there were indeed a number of emotions experienced by Jesus. I will present this work at the Saint Louis Congress next summer. And then I compared this with another analysis.

We took the image of Jesus' face that you see on the shroud, especially the photographic negative, which you can see better. And I asked two specialists here in Italy to use Paul Ekman's method called FACS, facial Action Coding System to analyze on the face of Jesus [00:19:00] on the shroud. Whether there are expressions of the emotions he experienced at the time he died.

We had to work. I worked with two psychologists on this. I will also talk about this. Insant Lewis. We had to work, but looking, the photographic image was not enough. We also needed a three-dimensional model, and so we went to Padua. I show you a reproduction, which the sculptor, Sergio Rodella, made of the body of Jesus in the shroud.

We went to see, especially the part of the face obviously for this research because the three dimensional survey is more accurate than the photographs, which are only two dimensional. And then we made a comparison with some victims, the dead from the same historical period. The victims of the eruption of Vesuvius in Pompeii and Herculaneum, which have in common with the shroud, the fact that these people died in an unnatural position, not [00:20:00] in natural rigor mortis, but with the cadaver spasm.

Thus, they remained stiffened in the position they were in at the moment of death. And this also allows a study of facial expression with emotions. It was very interesting. I'll give you a hint. The predominant emotion on Jesus' face that can be seen on the shroud is sadness, which is quite, how shall I put it?

Natural isn't it? A man dying, crucified. But the most interesting thing is not the emotion present, in my opinion, but the emotion absent. There is no fear and there is no anger, nor is there any expression of grief. This is very interesting. It corresponds with the behavior and attitude that Jesus had during his agony as told by the evangelists.

We know according to the evangelists, that he showed no anger towards his [00:21:00] persecutor, his executioners, and even asked forgiveness for his executioners. Whereas fear is an emotion he certainly experienced at the moment of Gethsemane. This is recounted by the evangelists, but there is no trace of it on the cross at the moment of death according to the face of the shroud.

And so I tried to look for these things and then develop more theological reflections, which I will not recount in detail now, but also seeking a comparison with a vision of the death of Jesus. Also with those who are not Christian and those who are not Catholic. So I tried to see the points of view of people outside the world of the Christian and Catholic faith, such as the Dalai Lama, who took part in meetings with Benedictine monks, in which they also spoke about this, and with an Italian singer songwriter called Fabrizio Deandre, who was not a believer, but was convinced that the death of Jesus was an exceptional model of [00:22:00] life and love of a revolutionary kind.

So I made an attempt at comparison also with non-Christian and non-Catholic readings, and also with the ecumenical, one of the Tza community in France.

Guy: Yeah, thank you. That's it's gonna be very interesting. How are you currently collaborating with other scholars, shroud scholars, and areas where and what else are you studying?

Alessandro: Yes. At the moment I am working in connection with the Regina Apostol Pontifical Atheneum here in Rome, which is run by the Legionaries of Christ and which runs a course on the shroud. I took part as a teacher in a training course just for religion teachers last year and in other meetings that we hold from time to time.

Then there is another group that is coordinated by Professor Emanuela Marelli. We work through social networks. Emmanuella Marelli, [00:23:00] she too was part of the Roman Center of Synology of Bishop Ricci. We met back in the 1970s there and recently I also joined a group, which is the one where we later met with you Guy, which is the Shroud Science Group.

Led by the time I can make available for this exchange of research with other scholars at this time of my life is limited. My teaching job and my family commitments do not allow me to devote myself full-time to these activities. I was able to do this when I left my teaching job for three years and went back to university to do my doctorate, and now I do partial things in my spare time, I am waiting to finish my professional life as a teacher to retire and to be able to devote myself more full time to these activities.

There are some interesting premises. You can work on many things. For example, I think that there are passages in the New Testament at this [00:24:00] moment. I am thinking of St. Paul's letter to the Galatians where I think there are traces of the path that the shroud took. I think that the Galatians saw the shroud because Paul says at a certain point in chapter three, verse one, that Christ crucified was shown to them before their eyes.

I would like to study that text better. To connect it with the studies on the history of the shroud, which it seems to me that you are involved in Guy, no, the history of the shroud. So collaborating with other scholars to reconstruct a little bit better, some less clear, a little bit more obscure aspects of the early period of the life of the shroud.

Still what can be documented through the biblical texts of the New Testament. This is something that interests me very much. Another thing that interests me a lot is the religious use of the shroud, precisely because I specialize in spiritual [00:25:00] theology. I think that the preservation of the shroud in the Cathedral of Turin and the organization of the OS tensions that has been done in the past.

Unfortunately, in this Holy year, it is not being done, but I think it will be done again sooner or later. I think it requires a clearer stance on the part of the church authorities on the definition of what the shroud is, because the problem is that if there was a corpse in the shroud and that corpse is not Jesus, it is very difficult to deal with from a religious point of view.

If it were a simple painting, an icon, it would already be easier, but we know that it is not a painting and an icon. So this is another issue that I would like to bring to the attention of the scholarly community as well, and share with others the appropriate ways to point out these needs for further investigation.

Guy: Yeah, very interesting. Now you're creating some kind of an app with your [00:26:00] students. Yes. For knowledge of information on the shroud. Tell us a little bit about this app.

Alessandro: Yes. Precisely because as I said before, my students are interested in the shroud. This year we have had the opportunity to collaborate in a project with a large organization, which however, does not want to be mentioned, and so I will not quote it to leave us as a school as EO Volterra, the freedom to act.

We are trying to create an app to manage all the scientific, historical, and biblical information and data on the shroud, which could be useful both to scholars to search for documents, but also to curious people interested in learning more. It would be very useful to have at one's disposal with a few clicks on an app, for example, to be directed to the research done by stir.

Or to the issue of Carbon 14, or I say one of the latest, [00:27:00] which seems very interesting to me, the one done by Professor Barcia, which is on the DNA of the Shroud. That one is also very interesting because it reveals a series of data that we did not expect. For example, we even have traces of plant DNA and human DNA from India.

So we probably have an Indian origin of the Shroud cloth, which was called Hindu by the Jews, and was a very expensive cloth, a precious cloth that was used for royal burials. So it looks like this could be very useful here. We could just put this whole series of documents in an app, but it will take a lot of time, a lot of patience.

We are starting to work on it. I don't think anything similar exists at the moment. My impression is that currently the best tool is still Barry Schwartz's site, the shroud.com, but there is still nothing better. [00:28:00] There is no culture of the shroud on either a scientific or religious level that gives the due commitment and honor of study to the shroud much more is needed.

We have a hard time talking about it even in universities. I also wanted to say that when I was at the Gregorian University, which is the Jesuit University here in Rome, there were two of us in the same year doing a doctorate on the shroud. I did mine and then Don Domenico Repeate did one before me on the shroud as an icon of Holy Saturday, but nothing happened after that.

There has been no academic interest, no organization of conferences, courses or meetings. That is a pity. I must say that I have found more interest in the United States than in Italy in the consequences of our research, and that pleases me, and I hope to find precisely in the United States [00:29:00] also by coming to you in St.

Louis next summer. An interest and a collaboration that can be useful to everyone.

Guy: Yeah, very interesting. I wanna see the app when it is available, so looking forward to that.

Alessandro: Oh yes, but it will take a long time. You have to be patient. Yeah. It

Guy: never goes fast enough either.

Alessandro: Okay.

Guy: Okay. Alessandro, thank you so much very interesting and really looking forward to hopefully seeing you in St.

Louis with the upcoming conference. And for those of you that need more information on the conference, please go to Shroud. 2025 conference.com and you'll see the list of the speakers and the activities and what have you. I think it'll be a very good thing. Alessandro, thank you so much for being here today.

I really appreciate it. Thank you very much to you Guy, and I hope we can see each other in St. Louis next summer. Yes, exactly. I'm [00:30:00] looking forward to the warm weather. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Bye.