Monday, December 3, 2012

Rev. Peter Rinaldi Apostle of the Shroud



In my research of the history of the Shroud, I have come across the unique contributions the late Rev. Peter Rinaldi.

He was a seminarian in Turin and was present for the 1933 exposition of the Shroud and served a an interpreter for an informal seminar of participants. The Enrie photographs were then being distributed in 1933, and seminarian Peter Rinaldi rubbed shoulders with giants such as Paul Vignon and Secondo Pia.

In 1934, he wrote an article on the Shroud for The Sign, a Catholic monthly in America. When he returned from Italy and was ordained, he eventually was appointed pastor of Corpus Christi Church in Port Chester New York . He established a shrine dedicated to the Shroud of Turin.

His most important contribution came in 1978 when he was an expediter for the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP). Because of a customs problem, the local authorities had placed an embargo on the STURP scientific apparatus necessary for their analysis of the Shroud.

It was Fr. Rinaldi, meeting alone with the Italian authorities he convinced them to release the equipment and the STURP analysis proceeded. The rest, as they say, is history. Without Fr. Rinaldi's intervention, the entire project would have been thwarted.

I was able to locate an archive of Sign Magazine which has long since ceased publication. I have a posted a copy of the 1934 article on my web site at: http://johnklotz.com/Shroud/RinaldiJune1934.pdf

While science has advanced since 1934 when the article was written and some of his conclusions may have been overtaken by further research, much of it is valid today.

The article, written by this young seminarian on the brink of his career of  service to the Church and the Shroud, is a landmark on the journey to the truth.
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You can read more about Father Rinaldi and the Shroud of Turin in my book, The Coming of the Quantum Christy: The Shroud of Turin and the Apocalypse of Selfishness. For more information go to:  

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