Turin Shroud on public display

(April 10, 2010) The Holy Shroud, believed to be the burial cloth of Jesus, went on public display on Saturday in the northern Italian city of Turin, where it is housed. The long linen with the faded image of a bearded man is the object of centuries-old fascination and wonderment, and closely kept under wrap. The cloth, also known as the Turn Shroud is open for public viewing for the next six weeks. By late Friday, 1.5 million people had reserved their three-to-five-minute chance to gaze at the cloth, which is kept in a bulletproof, climate-controlled case. Organizers said earlier this year they hoped some 2 million pilgrims and tourists would see the linen during the special viewing from April 10 to May 23. That number doesn't include Pope Benedict XVI, who will fly to Turin, the capital of Italy’s Piedmont region on May 2, to pray before the shroud. Traditionally, the public gets a peek at the 4.3-meter-long, 1 meter-wide cloth only once every 25 years. But recent decades have seen much shorter intervals. The shroud went on display in 1998 after a 20-year-wait and then in 2000 during Millennium celebrations. Since the linen's previous showing a decade earlier, restorers have removed patches sewn on by nuns in 1534, two years after a fire damaged the case then holding the it.