Glenn Beck said on his radio show Friday that he thinks the Shroud of Turin is the burial cloth of Christ and that it is meaningful for all Christians, not just Catholics.

Beck, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, talked with Jeremiah Johnston, a Baptist pastor in Texas who has studied the shroud, for a Blaze TV show and podcast that was released on Saturday. He told his radio listeners that the latest research into the origins of the shroud is convincing.

“The things that science has found about this ... I think this is the shroud of Christ,” Beck said, while adding, “You’ll have to make up your own mind.”

The Shroud of Turin is a 14-foot cloth that bears the image of a man with wounds consistent with someone who has been crucified. It has been called “the most studied artifact in history,” with some calling it an elaborate fraud and others saying it is physical evidence of Christ’s resurrection. Previously owned by the House of Savoy, Italy’s ruling family, it was bequeathed to the Vatican after the death of Umberto of Savoy in 1983, and is now officially owned by the pope.

Catholic pontiffs have expressed different opinions about the shroud’s authenticity over the years.

John Paul II, who was the pope at the time of the bequest, encouraged scientific study of the shroud, but did not say whether he believed it to be the cloth that covered the body of Jesus. “The shroud is a challenge to our intelligence. It first of all requires of every person, particularly the researcher, that he humbly grasp the profound message it sends to his reason and his life,” John Paul II said in 1998.

John Paul’s successor, Pope Benedict, seemed more convinced, saying in 2010, “This is a burial cloth that wrapped the remains of a crucified man in full correspondence with what the Gospels tell us of Jesus.”

Pope Francis, more circumspect, has said that the image of “the man of the shroud” should invite contemplation of Jesus. “This image, impressed upon the cloth, speaks to our heart and moves us to climb the hill of Calvary, to look upon the wood of the Cross, and to immerse ourselves in the eloquent silence of love,” Francis said in 2013.

Beck, who grew up Catholic and converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an adult, said he has been fascinated by the shroud since childhood. Beck has done paintings both of the image on the shroud and of what Jesus looked like according to that image.

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Last year, an AI-generated image of Jesus was shared on social media, sparking renewed interest into the shroud, and a 2022 study published in the journal Heritage found the material is about 2,000 years old.

Glenn Beck speaks during an interview at his ranch in southern Idaho on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News

The principal researchers — one of whom is religious, the other not — have said that their work does not establish that the shroud is the burial cloth of Christ, only that it dates to around the time that Jesus lived and died. Previous testing done in 1999 found pollen spores on the shroud consistent with plants in Jerusalem in that time, The Telegraph reported.

Will the Shroud of Turin be on display in 2025?

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The shroud, which officially belongs to the pope, is stored in a bulletproof, climate-controlled case at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy.

While some have said that the authenticity of the shroud as Jesus’s burial cloth can no longer be disputed, the Catholic Church has not taken a position on the matter, and other studies have concluded that the shroud is not authentic.

The shroud was last on public display in 2015 in Turin, and was widely expected to be available for public viewing again in 2025, during the Catholic Church’s celebration of a Jubilee year. However, the Diocese of Turin has said Pope Francis will participate in a virtual event on May 3 and that people will be able to make a “virtual pilgrimage” to see the shroud online.

There are, however, replicas of the shroud that are frequently on tour, and Beck was able to look at a replica of the shroud while filming his show. An international symposium on the shroud is scheduled for July 30-Aug. 3 in St. Louis, Missouri.

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