Controversy

An incident happened yesterday at work, that required my defense of my faith. It surprised me.

It was not about the Pope and what he knew and didn't know about Fr. Murphy. It was not about the sex scandal, or pedophile priests, or the Eucharist, or anything else that its news.

It was about the Shroud of Turin.

The people I work with are all non practicing Catholics. One is a practicing Wiccan. So they all assume that they know all about the Catholic Church. IOW, you can't tell them anything because they all went to Catholic schools and were taught the erroneous ideas that they know hold.

The Wiccan happened to say that it was interesting to see how old the Shroud of Turin is and how they can determine how the person died and how old it was, etc. Well, it just so happens that I have my doubts that that shroud is Jesus'. I base my opinion on 1Corinthians 11:14. "For a man to wear his hair long is degrading."

St. Paul is a contemporary of Jesus. No, they did not know each other, but they lived at the same time, i.e., same fashions. No man, especially one not married would wear his hair long, because homosexuals did that. Jesus would not have wanted to take the chance of being labeled homosexual, especially if He were unmarried, which was unusual for a man at that time. Holy men married and had lots of children.

Anyway, that's why I have my doubts that the shroud is Jesus'. Well, the Wiccan said "I believe Jesus was married to Mary Magdalen." Another said "How can you believe that nails were hammered..." I retorted that their objections were historical facts, not religious. They finally settled on the Resurrection. They all agreed that the story of the Resurrection was just that, a story.

I did my best, but this is a matter of faith. Of course, now 24 hours after the fact, I'm going over what I should have said. What would Patrick Madrid have said?