– English Lyrics

Lyrics & Translation

[English]

[Music]

[Music]

in Rome, deep in the heart of the

Vatican.

They say there is an amazing object. It

becomes one of the real marvels of the

city and one of the chief things that a

pilgrim would go and see and venerate.

Not a painting or icon, but a true image

of Jesus Christ. It is called the veil

of Veronica. The Veronica was believed

to be a piece of fabric that touched the

face of Christ and then bore a

miraculous image.

Venerated for over a thousand years,

this was once the most prized relic in

Christrysendom and an object of

pilgrimage. But one man has a shocking

revelation. He believes the object in

the Vatican is a

fake. And he knows because he's found

the real one.

This is the story of Paul Batter's

journey of discovery to find what had

happened to the true face of God.

Confessing that this face has gone lost,

it was a hard thing to do. If he is

right, his discovery could have huge

implications for the history of the

church and for the future of

Christianity itself. It was the first

time for around 500 years that the pope

saw and

venerated the true face of

[Music]

Christ. The story began at a dinner in

Churin when journalist and author Paul

Bada met German art historian Professor

Hinrich Feifer.

[Music]

Father Feifer told Paul an amazing

tale that if true could rewrite history,

be the most significant discovery in

Christianity, and show how what was once

one of the most venerated objects in the

Vatican could be a fraud. I raised my

glass to

him. I thought he must have been crazy.

[Music]

The story revolved around a fabulous

relic, the veil of

Veronica, whose origins are immortalized

in most churches as the so-called sixth

station of the

cross. The stations of the cross take us

through Christ's last terrible journey

to his execution.

Every church has these images that we

call the stations of the cross. And that

allows us to accompany Jesus as he makes

his way from his condemnation to death

by Pontius Pilate right up to the moment

of crucifixion and his burial.

Step by step, the stations tell the tale

of the horrific suffering Jesus faced in

the leadup to his death. He was

scourged and crowned with

thorns before he carried the cross

through the narrow streets of

Jerusalem. Along the way, Jesus is met

by friends and supporters who share in

his pain and suffering. One of them was

said to be a woman known as Veronica. A

pious woman of Jerusalem saw Christ

suffering and bleeding and and sweating.

And she took her sweatcloth, which was a

cloth she was wearing around her head

and gave it to him to dry his face from

blood and sweat.

The legend has it that when Christ

handed the cloth back to her,

miraculously an image of his face had

transferred to the

material. But it is only a story.

Veronica herself is not actually

mentioned in the Bible. The legend of

Veronica is moving us because it is a

legend of compassion and love and a

miracle.

And it allows us to have an image of

Christ.

Whatever its actual origin, stories of a

cloth bearing a miraculous image of

Christ, not made by human hands,

continued to circulate throughout the

early Christian period. There's a whole

interconnected network of legends about

a miraculous image of Jesus's face which

seem to come from different sources and

have different motivations behind them.

[Music]

Somehow this miraculous cloth with its

image of Christ made its way to Rome.

The first documented evidence of the

Veronica being in Rome is from 705 when

Pope John II built a shrine for the

Veronica.

By 1200, the Veronica was on permanent

display in St. Peter's Basilica and

thousands of people flocked to see it.

This image became hugely important to

the world of art. Until then, artists

had no idea of what Jesus actually

looked like. There are no clues in the

Gospels. So, they depicted him in an

idealistic or general

way. There are images of Jesus in the

catacombs and elsewhere from the second

and third centuries where Jesus just

looks like a normal young Roman man,

clean shaven, a bit plump. You can only

identify him by the fact that he's

performing a miracle. And he's normally

doing it in the way that a Roman god

would do. So for example, he's curing

someone by touching them with a stick.

But when the Veronica appeared, all that

changed. Now artists and worshippers

could look at an actual image of a real

face.

It was very visual and especially in the

Middle Ages, the visual side of the

faith was was tremendously important.

Having this imprint of Christ's face was

almost as good as having a photograph.

You had an idea how God who became man

really looked. God was not an idea. It

was a face. God got a face, a human

face.

This same face was seen and copied by

many of the great artists and appeared

in more and more

works. It became the model for Jesus.

The characteristics are always the same.

The parted hair, the thin beard, the

nose and mouth. The Veronica was copied

widely and the simplified image of

Christ's face was distributed across the

world.

In fact, this image became so popular

that a whole guild of specialist artists

was created just to meet the demand.

from the middle of the 14th century get

really clear evidence for people who are

reproducing the Veronica and reproducing

the holy images of Rome and selling

those on as as copies but copies which

bear the same spiritual authority and

miracle working power that the original

did. The Veronica proved not only a

potent symbol but also a great source of

revenue as an object of pilgrimage.

The Veronica becomes a very important

relic in Rome that there's a chapel

dedicated to it in St. Peter's. It soon

becomes even the symbol of pilgrimage to

Rome. So it becomes one of the real

marvels of the city and one of the chief

things that a pilgrim would go and see

and venerate.

Successive popes used the Veronica to

increase their prestige and influence.

Innocent thei is particularly interested

in promoting the the Veronica in part to

promote the city of Rome itself and to

encourage the pilgrimage to Rome.

Pope Innocent III granted indulgences

for those who prayed before the

Veronica, gave it its own feast day and

even prominarded it around the

city. The highlight of the holy year was

the showing of the Veronica because this

was the encounter with Christ on earth

when we were still alive.

Eventually, the Veronica became big

business. Numbers visiting Rome became

so vast that the decision was made to

tear down the old basilica of St.

Peter's and rebuild it.

One of the ways in which popes of the

early Renaissance proclaimed their uh

authority and created their legacy was

through major building projects. And St.

Peters is a good example of a

Renaissance pope crafting his legacy

with a oversized building project.

Dominating the center of this

magnificent new basilica is the altar

which according to tradition was built

above the tomb of St. Peter.

And then around it they have these four

pillars where they place the relics

which were so popular in the middle

ages. The head of St. Andrew, the veil

of Veronica, the holy lance and also

part of the true cross and each of these

relics in a sense being a cornerstone, a

pillar of this new basilica of St.

Peter's, the heart of the

church. In other words, the Veronica had

become one of the great pillars of the

Catholic Church. But then Rome entered a

dark period of disruption and violence

and everything changed.

On the 6th of May

1527, Rome was looted and attacked

ironically by the troops of the Holy

Roman

Emperor. The suck of Rome was a

catastrophe for the Roman church. For a

thousand years, Rome was a safe place

where all the pilgrims and the kings and

the emperors who came to Rome left

important donations at St. Peter.

In an orgy of violence, 500 men were

slain in front of the altar and many of

the relics it had housed disappeared.

According to the contemporary reports,

the most important relics were given

away in a pup and drinking soldiers were

drying their mouth with a veil of

Veronica. In time, the dust settled and

the new St. Peter's Basilica was finally

completed and

consecrated. But by then, something had

obviously

changed. Although the Vatican still

claimed to have the Veronica safe, it

was no longer on public

display. And on the rare occasions when

it was shown, it seemed to look

different.

Suddenly, the Veronica was not a clear

shiny image anymore, but a dark cloth

with some traces of blood.

It led some to wonder if the original

face of God had been lost. So, the big

question is what happened to the

original Veronica, the beautiful

Veronica which was painted by the

painters in the middle ages. It

disappeared. And here we have the

discovery of Father

[Music]

Fifer. At the dinner in Turin, Father

Feifer outlined his theory to Paul

Batter that the real face of God was no

longer in the

Vatican. Paul was skeptical. He had been

warned of Feifer's fantastical claims

before, but Father Feifer went further,

claiming he knew where the real Veronica

was

now, 120 mi away in a small town called

Manipello.

He said, "Yes, there's something quite

unknown in a little remote hilltop in

the Yutzi Mountains." He said, "How come

that does the whole world doesn't know

of it?" He said, "Yeah, that's a

mystery." you know, he made it even more

mysterious and so I I it was just

completely completely unbelievable.

Paul dismissed the whole theory. I

thought it's a fine story and but that

was it. He wasn't even curious about it.

But this chance meeting would prove to

be a turning point in Paul's life.

[Music]

Some months later, whilst traveling with

his daughter down the Adriatic coast,

Paul found himself near

Manipello and the church that Father

Feifer had claimed was the home to the

real Veronica. Then we got there and I

thought it was about lunchtime, so maybe

we could have a little lunch up there

and have look at it.

The town of Manipello, nestled within

the mountainous region of Abrutzo, is in

a remote area off the beaten track and

largely forgotten by the outside world.

Got off the highway. Uh the restaurant

was closed and I got here to the church.

[Music]

Walking into the

church, Paul saw the image for the first

time. The church had a mass and after

the mass, I got up there and this image

was just I mean, he looked at me.

Paul was immediately struck by the eyes,

the gaze of Christ on this transparent

image.

Seeing somebody's face is really seeing

the person, you know, looking into

somebody's eyes, looking at their their

expression. We can learn so much about

that person. We believe that God became

man in Jesus Christ. Um, and to be able

to see that face as it existed in in his

humanity, it would be a wonderful link

with the divine nature.

[Music]

Paul noticed that the material was so

fine that in certain light the image

almost

[Music]

vanished only returning when illuminated

by a torch is constantly

exposed and you can walk nearby you can

walk around. You can take pictures from

any direction and you can see how the

light from the many windows in this

church go through

[Music]

it. You can put your hand behind it. You

can see your hand. You can put a

newspaper behind it and you can read the

newspapers because it is so thin and so

fine. And when you get very close to it,

you see that the image itself is

translucent. You don't see any color.

Paul could have gazed at the image

forever, but was pressed for time. My

daughter, she was very unpatient. Let's

let's get off. I'm hungry. Let's have

something to eat. So, she dragged me

away. But I had to look at it one more

time.

And then he looked at me as if somebody

who would just be awakening.

Deeply affected, but not sure of what

he'd just seen. Paul couldn't bring

himself to believe it was the real

thing. And after leaving, put it to one

side.

Two years passed and after working

abroad as the Jerusalem correspondent

for the German daily newspaper Devet,

Paul returned to

Rome. It was here that the Veronica

reappeared in his life once again.

saw around the corner I saw a little

poster announcing a not a press

conference a lecture of a certain

butterf what he's going to tell me about

the image

father Hinrich Fifer is a German Jesuit

scholar specializing in medieval

religious art

fatherifer is one of the leading art

historians of the Christian world, a

highly educated man and very important

art historian.

During the course of the lecture, Father

Feifer reiterated his claim that the

Manipello image is the veil of

Veronica. During the talk, Paul was

struck by the detail in the magnified

close-ups.

Seeing them brought a sudden

revelation. It was real and he believed

in it.

I thought this is it. It must be

everything must be true. But these

images there's no comparison to it. I

hadn't seen photos like this before.

He was so fascinating. But it became the

mission of his life to spread the

message of the human image of God around

the

world. Paul was desperate to tell the

world about these miraculous images and

write a book, but he knew how hard it

would be to convince people.

It was a formidable challenge. He would

need a lot of evidence to win over

skeptics. The first question is, how can

there even be a face displayed in

Manipello if there is already a veil of

Veronica in the

Vatican? Every year on Passion Sunday at

5:00

p.m., you can see what today is

venerated in St. Peter the Veronica

because the cannons of St. Peters appear

on the balcony and bless the faithful

with the modernday Veronica which is in

a in a huge heavy silver

frame but you can't see a human

[Music]

face. Drawing on all his Roman contacts,

he tried to secure a meeting with the

Vatican authorities.

Eventually in summer of 2004 after much

persistence he was granted an audience

with Professor Arnold Nestlerat.

He's a director of the Vatican museums.

He's a very prestigious position. He's a

highly respected person in the world of

a heart.

Keen to learn the Vatican's angle on the

Manipello image, Paul met with Professor

Nestlerat. He eagerly showed him

pictures of the Manipello

face and questioned the professor about

what it could be.

But professor Nestlerat would not be

drawn into the debate about the

manipello image.

He had heard something of it and he had

heard something of fifer and he was from

the big front who had decided about part

of fifer that he's not to be taken

serious.

Professor Nestlerat would neither lend

any credence to the manipello image nor

let Paul see the Vatican's Veronica.

When pressed to go and examine the image

in Manipello for himself, the professor

declined, claiming it was beyond his

jurisdiction. The official channels had

got him nowhere. He needed a different

approach for his investigation.

[Music]

If he can't see the Vatican's image, he

needed to find out more about the one in

Manipello. When had it arrived and how

had it got there?

The problem with something like the

image of Manipello is that there just

isn't a paper trail basically. So, we

know this object has been here in

Manipello for a certain amount of time.

We know that it arrived there under

certain circumstances, but before that,

who knows? Basically, there's just no

way of telling.

Paul realized that if it is real, then

the most likely time for its arrival in

Manipello would have been around

1527 during the sack of

Rome. And there seemed to be a link.

Paul's research showed that Pope Clement

took refuge in the castle Santangelo

after the sack of Rome. Something as

valuable as the Veronica wouldn't have

been left

behind. Whilst waiting for the looting

to end, Paul thought it possible that

the commander of the castle had it

spirited away to safety far from Rome.

Intriguingly, the commander had an

estate in

Manipello, but it all seemed to make

sense. One very realistic perspective is

what believes in the Castello Zangeli

um who had land in Manoello safeguarded

it and brought it there to protect it.

But

confusingly there is another version of

events.

In

1506 a stranger appeared in Manupello

and gave it to a local and this local

um wanted to ask questions but suddenly

the stranger disappeared and he believed

he was an

angel. This didn't add up as 1506 is 21

years before the sack of Rome.

Paul then looked at what was happening

in Rome during this period and

discovered very little was written about

the Veronica for a 100red years after

the sack of Rome until the consecration

of St. Peter's Basilica in

1626. Officially the Veronica was still

there housed within one of the four

famous pillars.

[Music]

But Paul discovered something puzzling.

In 1629, Pope Urban VI stopped the veil

being

displayed. The lucrative trade in copies

was prohibited and he demanded all

existing copies be destroyed on pain of

excommunication. It was as if someone

was trying to hide something.

[Music]

It was important to recall all the

images of the Veronica which has

disappeared and to wait until it

disappears from the memory of pilgrims

and Christian

faithful. Paul discovered that the story

of an angel bringing the image to

Manipello first appeared during the time

the images were being destroyed.

When the Manipello image was

scrutinized, 12 towns people came up

with the story that their face of God

was brought to them by an angel long

before the sack of Rome. To Paul, now

this story made sense. The villagers had

used this tale to pretend their image

couldn't possibly be of the real

Veronica, and by doing so had protected

their image from destruction.

It was to disguise something and then

they invented the story. I mean that an

angel has brought it here. What you can

do easily in Italy because Italy is full

of

saints. Miracles are not strange to to

Italians. Only after time had passed did

the Vatican start showing the Veronica

again.

But it seemed different and much darker.

Replacement was not a good or bad copy,

but something completely different. You

had to destroy the original images and

replace them by what you have. Later,

the Vatican gave out new prints of the

Veronica which resembled what they have

today. But this is a clear indication

that the original relic disappeared and

was exchanged.

The evidence for this can be found in

art. Now, not only did it look

completely different, so did the copies

made by

artists. It all seemed to suggest that

the original had been lost.

[Music]

Paul was now certain that the original

couldn't be in the Vatican and that at

some point the image was exchanged and a

new one put in its

place. But to prove that he needed more

evidence, he looked at early

descriptions of the

veil. In the past, it was recorded as

being almost transparent. Even the

Protestant reformer Martin Luther said

it was like a translucent piece of

linen. Unlike the blackened image in the

Vatican, the Manipello image fitted that

description.

There are many compelling reasons to

think that that might be the case. The

fact that the veil is transparent, that

we can see through it, and we knew that

was the case for the medieval Veronica.

[Music]

Paul's attempts to see the Vatican's

Veronica continued to be

rebuffed. Thinking laterally, he decided

to visit their vast treasury

[Music]

museum. He was looking for any evidence

that would tie the Manipello image to

Rome before 1527.

In the treasury of St. Peter's there is

a broken frame um in which the Veronica

was once kept a frame that you could

observe from both sides just like in

Manopel and roughly the same dimensions.

For Paul it was another clue. Only a

transparent image that could be viewed

from both sides would ever be displayed

in this way. To have a frame which is

translucent only makes sense if you have

a translucent

cloth like the veil of Manoello. The

dimensions

fit. And this is why we believe that the

original Veronica which was venerated in

this frame is what we today call the

wheel of Manopell.

If the true Veronica was still in the

Vatican, why had this frame been smashed

and the original cut away? Taken all the

information together which you have,

there's no doubt about it. It must have

been the sack of Rome.

[Music]

Paul concluded it was the Manipello

image that was torn from this smashed

frame. The image even has a glass chip

still embedded in it.

The whole story of his frame is giving

even more credence to the theory of

professor fif Paul that the true

veronical of the middle ages is a

manopello

today. It is a conflict about

plausibility. If somebody comes up with

the theory which is more plausible I'm

the first one to applaud it. the first

one.

For Paul, the evidence linking the

Manipello image to the original Veronica

was conclusive. He was certain that they

are one and the same. This now begged

the biggest question of all. Could this

really be the face of God? And if so,

how had it been created?

Paul went back to the original story and

looked for

clues. The problem is St. Veronica

doesn't exist in the Bible. One of the

striking features of the western version

of the legend is the character of

Veronica herself. A saint kind of

created by clerical error if you like.

The name obviously derives from the

Latin for the true icon or Latin and

Greek. the true image of Christ um

becomes the Vera Eone Veronica. You've

you've you know invented a saint.

In other words, there never was a

Veronica. Her name simply referred to

the cloth itself.

The legend of Veronica was only one of

many attempts to explain what we really

have. But the name is

revealing what we are talking about.

Vera Eonia the true image was not the

name of a woman but the name of the

[Music]

image. The implications of this are

enormous.

[Music]

If Veronica did not exist, then the

image could not have been created when

she had wiped Jesus's face on the way to

the

crucifixion. So, how did it get

[Music]

there? Paul examined the material itself

and discovered how extraordinarily fine

it was.

It didn't look like linen or even silk.

But what could it be? Researching on the

internet, he came across an ancient

fabric called bissus.

There are several types of bissels in um

antiquity, but the most precious one was

created from the silk of a a shell of a

muscle. It's called pinobilis. is a is a

very large Mediterranean muscle. 90 cm

large

thing. Divers harvested bisus by hand it

took thousands of threads to make the

smallest piece of silk and as a result

it was extremely

valuable. Bissus was so precious it had

long been revered as a religious

material.

Critically, it was used during the time

of Christ.

It was the most precious fabric in the

antique times. You find it in the graves

of the pharaohs in Egypt. You find it in

the cloth of the high priest. The effort

made of bus in the curtain of the

temple. Bus was mentioned. It's mostly

um translated in English. For instance,

shining linen.

But was the manipello image made of

[Music]

bissus? Continuing his research, Paul

tracked down a woman in Sardinia, the

last muscle silk

[Music]

cultivator. He flew her to Manipello to

see the image for herself.

[Music]

We brought here to the to the image of

the

veil. She got on her

knees. He said, "Oh, dear. Oh,

dear. That's

besus. That's m

[Music]

Bissus was far too valuable to have been

used as something to mop up

sweat. So, how might the image have got

there? Paul went back to the Bible to

look for clues.

After Jesus died, he was taken down from

the cross and laid in the tomb with the

different cloths needed for his

burial. A shroud to wrap the body and a

veil to cover his face.

Everybody was expecting to do the final

burial on Sunday morning. That's why the

women returned to to wash and clean and

unbalmed the body.

When they came, the body had

disappeared. The tomb was

empty. He was not there anymore because

he was not dead anymore. He had

risen. In John chapter 20, there's that

wonderful description of Peter and John

running to the empty tomb. and they've

just heard from the women that Jesus is

no longer in the tomb and they go and

investigate. The gospels are very clear

that when the disciples entered the

empty tomb, there were various burial

cloths lying around, not just the

shroud, but amongst others the cloth

that was around the face of

Christ. Such a funeral veil would have

been made of a fine valuable material

like

bissus. Could it have been that whilst

wrapped around Jesus's head, it had

miraculously taken on the image of his

face?

The church clearly believes in in the

supernatural. Um, it clearly believes in

the miraculous. It clearly believes that

the divine can work in the world. So,

it's certainly open to the possibility

of images made without human hands.

It was the image of of a Christ who is

alive rather than the image that we find

on the shroud of Chin, the image of a

dead

man. For the early Christians, it must

have been a

revelation. A

revelation. that not only the body of

the suffering Christ was imprinted on

the burial cloth, but we also have the

face of the resurrected Christ on a

[Music]

veil. And of course, both relics were

venerated and given from generation to

generation.

So, could the Manipello image have been

made by a miraculous

process? Skeptics have often claimed

that the Manipello image must just be a

painting. But Paul discovered Bissus has

an unusual quality. You cannot dye or

paint on it.

Paul verified it is indeed not ordinary

silk but shell silk which you cannot

paint. There are some very small

pigments by meeting evil painters who

try to refresh or to intensify colors in

some point or maybe even try to put fur

images against it to get the replica

blessed by the original. You call it

secondass relic or relic by touch.

But verified it is not a human

being. For Paul, all the pieces

supporting his belief in the truth

behind the manello image were fitting

into

place. From the Bible, he believed he

had deduced what the cloth itself was

used for. rather than being the cloth

used by that pious woman as as Jesus

carried the cross that it was actually

one of the burial cloths of our Lord.

From paintings he saw how the same image

had been revered in Rome throughout the

Middle Ages.

If you compare the Wto Santo of

Mano with all the paintings we have

after Veronica and Rome, they are

identical. They're identical. even in

details.

And from the broken frame, he could see

how it had been saved after the sacking

of Rome and sent to Manipello, where it

had been quietly forgotten for nearly

500 years. It's so evident. This is the

veil. There's no doubt about I mean, you

could rip my skin off. I mean this is

it for Paul Batterder. The story of

Manipello's face of God was almost

complete and he could start writing up

his

theory. After completing his research,

he sent all his evidence along with

photographs to Pope John Paul

II. It had been an incredible journey. I

couldn't I couldn't believe it. But but

this the whole the whole story every

time and again I had to pinch myself

because it was so a miraculous

story. Paul's work found a wide

audience. Not only was it seen by Pope

John Paul but also by Cardinal Ratzinger

the leading authority on Catholic

doctrine and thought who complimented

Paul on his work.

And then out of the blue on Sunday the

13th of March

2005, Paul Bada was granted an

extraordinary

opportunity to see the version of the

Veronica in the Vatican.

Making his way into St. Peters, he was

aware that this could be the final piece

of the puzzle.

I've been I don't know how come that I

have seen it that I all of a sudden the

doors open. I could enter the the

column.

Within the Veronica column is a

staircase leading to a small chapel

housing the actual image

itself.

Of course, Paul Bad has seen what they

believe to be the Veronica in the

Vatican right now and had the

opportunity to see the Israelic from

close by.

In the depths of the Veronica column, he

finally saw the veil of

Veronica. But it was a dark,

unrecognizable image, nothing like the

old artist's

reproductions. And it was housed in a

heavy, ornate picture frame.

Clearly this was a completely different

image.

What I saw there I saw big silver frame.

You see this hoax as might call it or

copy. Everything had disappeared.

He was even denied permission to

photograph it. The Vatican have taken

their own

photos but they are rarely shown.

The reason why they don't publish this

pictures is they don't want to

disappoint the faithful by revealing

that there's no face on the Veronica

anymore. To this day, no pope has openly

admitted that the Vatican Veronica ever

disappeared or that the barely visible

face shown today is anything other than

what had always been on display.

But Paul had no doubt about what had

really happened.

It was a trick. It was a trick from the

500 years ago, from these times of

Makaveli. Paul is certain that this

trick or hoax was deliberately

perpetrated to maintain the illusion

that the Vatican still had the real

one. But if this had happened hundreds

of years ago, why not admit it now? I

think there's no question that having

the Veronica in your church if you

happen to be the pope would be an

incredibly uh useful asset. You know,

it's an item with incredible holiness

and power. Everyone is is aruck by it.

Um you're going to get a lot of people

coming to see it and it shores up your

power effectively as leader of the

church. confessing that this face has

gone lost. It was a hard thing to do

for Rome and her powerful popes. Such a

monumental loss of face would have been

deeply

embarrassing. It's a catastrophe for the

church of Rome. He lost the faith of

God. Not the faith in God, but the faith

of God.

Paul thought there may have been another

reason why the hoax was perpetrated. The

Veronica had earned the church a lot of

money. They did not come to see St.

Peter. They did not even come to see the

pope as they do today. They wanted to

see the veil.

Pilgrims had to be shown something. And

that's just what

happened. What started as a small hoax

was simply allowed to continue until it

became widely believed.

It's easy to dismiss it as just a

cynical cashing in exercise. And I'm

sure it was partly a cynical cashing in

exercise, but it was also a way of

making that pilgrimage real. I mean,

remember the whole idea of pilgrimage,

at least in theory, is to take part in

the physicality of something holy.

But others are more sympathetic about

why the Veronica might have been

replaced.

First of all, I have to disagree with

both Father Fifer and my dear friend

Paul B in the idea that the canons of

St. Peter perpetrated a hoax, a pious

forgery, a pious fraud. I do not believe

it. I believe they were hysterically

searching for something and just took

the second best and believed it because

they wanted to believe it. But visits

the right Veronica.

On April the 2nd,

2005, Pope John Paul II died. He was

succeeded by the man who had

complimented Paul on his book, Cardinal

Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict I

16th.

On the 1st of September 2006, Pope

Benedict visited

Manipello. Often he visited Italian

shrines to to venerate the relics or or

the local traditions.

[Music]

And there's that very evocative image of

Pope Benedict just staring at at the

veil in Manopella. There's a real sense

of an encounter of a of a encountering

face to face um with Christ. He was

clearly very moved. For Paul this was

the justification for all his hard work

when he came to Monella for the first

pope. Then he prayed here in silence

about uh he bent his knee in front of it

and then for more than 8 minutes he's

been in sil prayer in front of it. I

mean it was very very

moving. It was the first

time for we believe around 500 years

that the pope saw and venerated the true

face of Christ of the resurrected

Christ.

Pope Benedict's visit changed

everything.

A week later on St. Peter Square in the

next audience he said if we want to know

who God is then we only have to look

into the face of his son and there we

see who God is and how God is. Although

not actually authenticating the image,

Pope Benedict's personal visit gave

credibility to those that believed this

was the true face of

God. He brought the image back into the

world. That's what he did.

Paul and many of the faithful believe

there is no doubting that this image is

genuine. But there will always be

skeptics. They want proper scientific

evidence to show how the image got there

and how old it is. The Guardians at

Manipello aren't against testing as long

as it is non-invasive and so doesn't

damage the

veil. They hope science will develop in

the future, allowing for a more detailed

examination, which they are sure will

vindicate their claims.

If this happens, then the veil of

Veronica would become one of the most

significant discoveries in Christian

history. Just as the Veronica was a very

popular relic in the Middle Ages, we're

now entering a new period, a revival of

this interest in in the holy face,

searching for the face of God, searching

for that personal encounter with him.

St. Paul wrote in his letters, if Christ

did not

resurrect, our faith is

worthless. So the

veneration of the Walto Santo is

concentrating the attention of

Christianity back onto the image of the

resurrected

Christ. And that's important.

[Music]

[Music]

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
face /feɪs/ A1	noun - the front part of the head, including the eyes, nose, and mouth
image /ˈɪmɪdʒ/ B1	noun - a representation or likeness of a person or thing
veil /veɪl/ B2	noun - a piece of thin material worn to cover the face or head
Christ /kraɪst/ B1	noun - the title given to Jesus in Christianity, meaning 'the anointed one'
Vatican /ˈvætɪkən/ B2	noun - the residence of the Pope in Rome and the headquarters of the Catholic church
relic /ˈrɛlɪk/ C1	noun - an object surviving from an earlier time, especially an old religious object
pilgrimage /ˈpɪlgrɪmɪdʒ/ B2	noun - a journey to a holy place as an act of religious devotion
church /tʃɜːrtʃ/ A1	noun - a building used for Christian religious activities
history /ˈhɪstəri/ A1	noun - the study of past events, particularly in human affairs
miracle /ˈmɪrəkəl/ B1	noun - an extraordinary event that surpasses natural or scientific laws
copy /ˈkɑːpi/ A2	noun - a thing made to be similar to another verb - to make a similar version of something
frame /freɪm/ B1	noun - a structure that surrounds and supports something verb - to put a frame around something
pope /poʊp/ B2	noun - the head of the Catholic Church
basilica /bəˈsɪlɪkə/ C1	noun - a large and important church
sack /sæk/ B2	noun - a large bag or a plunder and destruction verb - to plunder or destroy a place
discover /dɪˈskʌvər/ A2	verb - to find or learn something new
believe /bɪˈliːv/ A1	verb - to accept something as true
real /ˈriːəl/ A1	adjective - actually existing or happening
fake /feɪk/ B1	adjective - not genuine; fraudulent
miraculous /mɪˈrækjələs/ C1	adjective - amazing and not able to be explained