Photograph of image imprinted on the Shroud of Turin.

Few things are so useful in focusing attention on the sufferings Christ endured in his passion for the sake of humanity as meditating on the mysterious image imprinted on the Shroud of Turin.

And the image on the shroud isn’t the only thing about the cloth that’s shrouded in mystery. According to a report yesterday out of Rome, newly disclosed historical evidence indicates the shroud may have been in possession of the Knights Templar in the 13th and 14th centuries.

The Church has never pronounced on the authenticity of the mysterious image of the wounded Jesus that is imprinted on the shroud, which many Christians have long believed to be the actual burial cloth that was wrapped around Jesus after he was taken down from the cross of Calvary.

But contemporary researchers who have investigated the shroud have concluded there is no alternative scientific explanation that can account for the many remarkable aspects of the cloth, as you can read about here in an article we published last year.

Register subscribers can read more about the topic here, here, here and here in four more archived Register articles, all written by our shroud correspondent Shafer Parker Jr.

An article published April 6 by Catholic News Service provides a new twist on the history of the shroud, which also is a subject of discussion and dispute.

Vatican researcher Barbara Frale has found evidence “that the Knights Templar, the medieval crusading order, held secret custody of the Shroud of Turin during the 13th and 14th centuries,” CNS reports.

Go here to read all of CNS’s fascinating account of Frale’s research, which appears to substantiate a theory first put forward by British historian Ian Wilson in 1978.

It’s worth noting that the Knights Templar reportedly made use of the shroud for one of the same good purposes it can serve today: to reinforce sound Church doctrine about the reality of Christ’s humanity and the reality of the human suffering and death he experienced nearly 2,000 years ago.

Reports CNS, “The shroud, which bears the image of a man and is believed by many to have been the burial cloth of Jesus, was probably used in a secret Templar ritual to underline Christ’s humanity in the face of popular heresies of the time, [Frale] said.”