The Sixth Station (40 page)

Again, he laughed. “Real? Yes, perhaps if you believe the legend. Which I don’t.”

“What?” We were walking along the back cobblestone streets, which I’d never seen before despite having been to the Vatican many times as a tourist and also when I covered the election of Pope Benedict. Ancient residences lined the streets and were still occupied and hauntingly beautiful.

“I thought you were an expert on the Veil, and yet you call it a ‘legend’? You are not a true believer?”

He stopped and looked at me. He was not just startled but almost aghast. “True believer? There is no truer believer!”

“Oh. I’m sorry if I’ve offended you. But frankly, I’m confused.”

We turned a corner, and Saint Peter’s came into full view. It still had the ability to take my breath away.

“As I said, there are at least six ‘true’ Veronicas or at least ‘authentic’ copies of the true image. But there is only one authentic Volto Santo. I believe they are not one and the same, nor do I believe in the legend associated with it.”

“Are you saying there was no Saint Veronica?”

“No, but I am saying that even her name, Veronica, is a myth. The very name means ‘true image’ or ‘true icon,’ in reference to religious works.”

“Of course!”
Bingo.

As we walked around the cathedral, he continued: “In the Acts of Pilate there appears a report allegedly made by Pontius Pilate to Claudius. It is an anti-Semitic description of the Crucifixion, and an account of the resurrection of Jesus; both are presented as if they are official reports.

“A series of Latin manuscripts,
Cura Sanitatis Tiberii
or ‘The Cure of Tiberius,’ is the first time that the Veronica legend is mentioned anywhere. It states that the Veil cured Emperor Tiberius of some sort of malady. The interesting thing here is that the real Veil is made of a fabric called ‘byssus,’ made from the
hair,
if you will, of mollusks, those long filaments that protrude from mussels.”

“And that’s important because…?”

“The most famous weaver of byssus back then in all of Jerusalem was…” he said, pausing to gauge my reaction, “… Princess Berenike, the daughter of King Herod.”

“The king who ordered the slaughter of all infant boys when he heard about the birth of a new king of the Jews? Wow. That
is
hard to believe!”

“Faith is hard to sustain without belief, Ms. Roussel.”

“Yes. I know. But the possibility that the Veil that Veronica allegedly used to wipe the face of Jesus
could
have been made by Princess Berenike, the daughter of the man who tried to kill Jesus as an infant, is, well, incredible.”

He didn’t answer.

“Whew. So where are all these Veils and ‘authentic copies’ now?”

“One is in Vienna, there are two in Spain, one in Genoa, and one in the Matilda chapel in Saint Peter’s Basilica.”

“Surely that must be the real one?”

“Not unless this so-called woman Veronica wore a veil made of wood,” he sniffed. “It’s a painted image on wood, you see.”

I smiled. “I see.”

“Not yet do you see, not yet.” He continued, “I am one of the only people who
have
been granted permission to see the
cloth
imprinted with the image of Jesus that is kept in the Vatican since 1907. This image is stored in the chapel behind the balcony in the southwest pier—one of the supports of the dome.”

We entered Saint Peter’s from a side door, again blocked by two members of the Swiss Guard. Badde showed his credentials, and they opened the doors without hesitation. He began describing to me the significance of Veronica’s Veil within the Catholic Church.

“The four pillars of the church, and the statues that adorn each in the niches below, support the dome,” he explained as we walked around the magnificent basilica, pointing up. “They celebrate the greatest relics kept by the Vatican—which were all kept in one place.”

“Which is?”

“The Veronica pier.”

“The saint represented in the Sixth Station of the Cross?”

“Yes, exactly. It is the fourth pillar,” he said, pointing to the four pillars.

The fourth pillar represents the Sixth Station—“Go forth for I am six!”

“
Is the Veil of Veronica kept here
?
”

“Yes, and no. I will get to it in a minute.”

A minute? My heart was coming out of my chest wondering how I would manage to steal the precious relic out of the cathedral with the highest security in the world. I mean, they have their own army!

As I was overcome with the vastness, he kept up his guided tour of the reliquary.

“The pillars that support the Church—literally—are named for Saint Veronica, Saint Helena, Saint Longinus, and Saint Andrew.”

As we walked around, he picked up a guidebook to show me what we were seeing in person. “Each pier has a huge statue of a saint in each pillar’s niche representing each of the basilica’s
Reliquae Maggiori,
or four ‘major relics,’” he said, pointing to the northwest pier and its statue of Saint Helena.

“In this statue, created by Andrea Bolgi, Helena, Constantine’s mother, is holding a large cross, which represents the one ‘true cross,’ which she said she found in Jerusalem.”

We took the long walk to other side. “Here on the northeast pier is the statue of Saint Longinus, by Bernini. Longinus was the Roman soldier who thrust a spear into Jesus’ side at the Crucifixion, from which poured water and blood. Longinus converted and was later martyred. The relic is the spear.”

We headed south in the cathedral, pushing past literally thousands of tourists.

“Here at the southeast pier is the Saint Andrew pillar. The statue is by François Duquesnoy,” he said, shaking his head at the enormous crowds. “It’s much more crowded lately, if possible. The line outside must stretch to the Capitoline Hill!”

“Folks suddenly getting religion?”

“I think it has to do with that terrorist on trial who claims to be descended, or whatever he’s saying, from Jesus himself. It has brought out all the conspiracy theorists and fanatics, I’m afraid!”

I let it slip by without comment as we reached the next pillar.

The Saint Andrew statue was against the diagonal cross upon which he was martyred.

“Is the relic then a piece of that cross?”

“Hardly. It is Andrew’s head.”

“They keep his head?” I tried not to look too disgusted and instead asked, “Do you think that’s the Baphomet?”

“Have you been reading the conspiracy Web sites, Ms. Roussel?”

“Ahh. Yes,” I said, looking appropriately sheepish.

“Well, this relic head of Saint Andrew? It’s no longer here. It was returned to the Greek Orthodox Church in 1964.”

“So the Vatican has a Saint Andrew pillar but not the relic?”

“Correct,” he said, walking to the southwestern side of the basilica, where the gigantic pillar with the colossal statue of Saint Veronica stood.

It was a highly dramatic statue of a woman swirling a large cloth against what appeared to be a great wind that whips both the cloth and her clothing. It’s almost erotic. “Bernini as well?”

“Noooo. It was Francesco Mochi who sculpted this.”

He interpreted the Latin inscription: “The splendor of the church might keep in proper fashion and in safety the image of the Redeemer on Veronica’s
sudarium,
1625.”

“So it’s been here since at least that time?”

“Well, that is what is so interesting. The Veronica icon kept
here
is a hoax.”

“What? You can’t be serious!”

“More than serious. The True Face of Jesus still exists, yes, unharmed, in all its glory, but not at the Vatican. It is in Manoppello, a small mountain town.

“Another cloth identified as the Veil used to be in Rome—or
some
version of it.

“That version was saved, stolen, heisted—call it what you will—from the plundering German and Spanish soldiers by an unknown person during the sacking of Rome in the sixteenth century.

“The pope ordered that it be substituted with a copy—until the original could be found and brought back. That never happened.

“Now a version of the Veronica, which is quite rotted—I saw it for myself in 2005—is the one they
still
display in the Vatican once a year from high above.”

“How do they get away with it then?”

“Ahhh, an interesting conundrum, no? Whatever it is, we know that to this day this mysterious cloth is celebrated as the most important of the four
Reliquae Maggiori
.”

“It’s the most important—and it’s a fake? Is the whole story a fake, then?”

“If you mean, ‘Does the Veronica story appear in the New Testament or anywhere in the biblical writings?’ then the answer is no.

“Yet it
is
nonetheless venerated as the most important pillar of the church,” he said, as we stood before the magnificent, sensual statue of Saint Veronica. “That is why I saved this fourth pillar for last.

“This is where all of the other relics are kept—right within the pillar. There is an entrance at the base.

“
That
is the level of importance given to a woman who is more legend than we may have been led to believe.”

“So there
was
no real Saint Veronica. What about the Sixth Station of the Cross?”

“The Veronica of the medieval Veil legend has never existed. There was no woman who wiped his face as he carried the cross, that we actually know of.”

“What? But they showed you the Veil imprinted with the face of Jesus, did they not?”

“No, they allowed me to see
their
‘Veronica’s Veil,’ which is up in the pillar,” he said, pointing up. “It’s only brought out once a year, two weeks before Easter. They display it very swiftly from high above from that column.

“Only God knows why I was allowed to see it. But I saw with my very eyes that what it is, is a nearly rotted cloth showing exactly nothing. It has to be a fake, according to this ‘nothingness.’”

“So there is no
real
Veil?”

“I didn’t say that. In fact, three days after the election of Pope Benedict XVI, I
was
granted permission to see their
earliest
copy of the original Veil, which they keep hidden away in the Sacrestia della Cappella Sistina. It is a tremendously precious icon from the third century.

“It’s kept in a cardboard box, covered in layers of tissue paper. Their icon in a cardboard box! The relic has gilding around the outline of the face and has nails holding down the edges. we were even allowed, my wife and I, to shine a light on it. The face covers almost the entire linen cloth. But it had turned black, nearly completely.

“Here’s what’s even more interesting: When I gazed upon it I realized, Ms. Roussel, that I
had
seen a similar image before—but on the
authentic
Face of God, the one that is truly the most important relic in all of Christendom.

“The Volto Santo—what many call the Veil of Veronica. It was stolen from the Vatican during the sacking of Rome and brought in 1527 to Manoppello, although residents there claim that it was in 1506 … which I think is impossible.

“It has been kept in a small church monastery in that mountain town—about 106 miles from here—ever since. The church of the Cappucine friars on the Tarigni hill outside Manoppello. What is clear is that about 100 years after its arrival, the church was built. In 1638.”

“Astonishing. And the Vatican gets away with it—showing a fake, I mean?”

“For nearly five hundred years so far, yes. They obviously must have thought they would get the original back in the beginning, and that it might be better and wiser to keep quiet about the robbery until it was returned. But it never came back to Rome or to Saint Peter’s.”

“So I should not even try to see the Veil that is kept here?”

“No, I’m sorry, but the Veronica at the Vatican is not the Face you are looking for.”

“But it makes no sense! I mean, how could the most important relic in all of Christendom be hiding in a town no one’s ever heard of?”

“Well, many
have
heard of it, for one thing, and for another, it’s actually hiding in plain sight. It’s on display at the altar of the church there. In fact, in September of 2006 Pope Benedict himself went there and knelt down and prayed before it!”

“What?” I couldn’t believe what he was saying. “But you said the Veronica was just a legend.…”

“It is. But the actual cloth with Jesus’ true face—created without a drop of paint or dye or
any
coloration made by man—does exist. The cloth of Manoppello. Manoppello, by the way, ironically enough, means ‘napkin,’ even though the village name was in place well before the Veil arrived.

“
In fact the Veil, wrapped in a package, was left by an angel, as the legend goes, on a bench in Manoppello right after the sacking of Rome. A doctor, Giacomo Antonio Leonelli, found it, opened it up, and found the cloth imprinted with the face of Jesus.”

“Jeez,” I piped in, “it’s like finding the original Gutenberg Bible in a cab!”

“That is correct. Leonelli’s family kept it until 1608, when, after a series of events, it was donated to the Capuchin friars, who have kept it until this day.”

“So it’s been there all this time?”

“Yes. But the real Veil, the one I’ve described and that is kept there, is
not
Veronica’s Veil.”

“Now I’m really confused.”

“Rather it is, I believe, the face cloth, or
napkin,
that was placed over Jesus’ face in the
tomb.
”

“By whom?”

“By the last person who laid our Lord to rest in his grave. However, in order to explain the image on the cloths, over the years a tale was created that a woman wiped the face of Jesus on His way to Calvary and His image mysteriously appeared. Nowhere does this tale appear in the Bible
,
however.”

“Let me ask you something else,” I said. “Why was a napkin laid over the face of Jesus? I don’t understand.”

“I remember reading that it had been common practice back in the time of Jesus to lay a napkin or cloth upon the face of the deceased in the tomb. When Jesus arose from the dead, I believe this cloth was left with His imprint!”