Three's a Shroud

Although the Vatican had neither declared nor denied the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, that didn’t stop the rogue infertility specialist, Dr. Otto Zengler, from indulging in his fantasy of wanting DNA from it.

Just imagine, he thought. And what he imagined was extraordinary.

Not since the Renaissance heralded the schism between science and theology have these two philosophical motifs been forced together. Now, it was time for them to reunite into something greater, all at the behest of Otto’s intentions.

And now he had an in.

His uncle had just filled the Cardinal vacancy left when the oldest man in the college had died. Even better, when he explained his intentions, the priest thought it interesting. Otto had figured that would be the riskiest step, and now his only challenge was to actually do it.

He told his uncle he intended to clone Jesus Christ.

“What makes you think there’s not a lot of bogus DNA on it?” Cardinal Zengler asked Dr. Zengler. “Over the centuries, Otto, the shroud in question, besides not being validated as the real thing—that is, the actual body linen used to wrap Jesus after his crucifixion—its byzantine journey to Rome has exposed it to a hopeless entanglement of external contamination.”

“Leave that to me,” Otto said. “Total medical knowledge is now doubling every 73 days. That’s a lot of know-how just in the last ten years. And two thousand years, I might mention.”

“So,” the Cardinal concluded, “easy, right?”

“Well, no,” Otto answered. “I’m going to have to cross reference the blood types I see, identify what’s on each 23rd chromosome retrieved, then scour the source genetics for demographics and region of origin. Carbon dating can do the rest.”

“Ah,” the Cardinal intoned, although not understanding. Also, he didn’t accept the premise except to humor his nephew, all the while adding to the data already extracted over the years.

Getting the samples, with his connection at the Vatican, proved no challenge, because Cardinals rule: after all they pick the Popes. And Cardinal Zengler let Dr. Zengler pick the lock to the Baroque chapel in Turin that housed the Shroud.

Otto flew back with his insulated, frozen samples in hand. Once securely prepared for his probing efforts, he wasted no time. He identified the blood on the Shroud as AB, considered the universal blood type for peacefully mixing with any other type. That was certainly Jesus, he thought, in a manner of speaking. It also carried the XY genotype on its sex chromosome. That was Jesus, too.

After discarding the geographically eliminated samples from the “New World,” Asia, Africa, and anywhere north of the Middle East, Dr. Otto Zengler had his prime candidate, a smudge of existential genetic material from just south of the Mediterranean. It was a good sample. It was more than enough.

“Jesus will come again,” Otto said to himself. “The second coming from the Book of Artificial Reproductive Technology, and not the Book of Revelations.” So, when his uncle’s letter came, it disturbed him.

“Who are you, Otto,” the Cardinal had written him, “to set into motion such machinations?”

He knew his uncle was right. After all, wasn’t there a plan already, predicted and decreed? When he finally wrote back, he offered his rationalization.

“Perhaps God Himself had orchestrated this whole thing—me becoming a doctor, specializing in this—to fulfill what was intended to happen. Doesn’t God work in mysterious ways?”

The Cardinal didn’t write back. He called Otto, instead. “Isn’t that a bit narcissistic, Otto?” It was a short conversation and didn’t end well.

Otto’s scientific methodology was a slow process, but eighteen months later Otto had called his uncle to announce that he had successfully inserted what he believed to be Christ’s genome, via intracytoplasmic insertion, into the ovum of an anonymous female donor.

“And the donor?” the Cardinal asked sarcastically.

“She’s anonymous for a reason, Uncle,” Otto answered.

“Oh, yes,” the Cardinal agreed, “a mystery. Well, I know mysteries. Mysteries are a matter of faith. But anonymity is better, I suppose, even if the mystery is man-made.”

“Better for many reasons,” Otto said.

The donor was Judy Zengler, Otto’s 26-year-old daughter. Stealthy trips to his lab with her had succeeded in supplying him with many eggs. Judy, herself, was completely on board with this in a bizarre way, because she was still a virgin and appreciated that association.

Like most fathers, Otto had no idea of her sexual status either way, but he wasn’t thinking of the spiritual implications, only the scientific outcome of cloning the most famous person who ever lived—and who just might be God.

But he was not without his own fantastic tangential assumptions: That would make me Jesus’ grandfather, he thought. That would normally make anyone else laugh uneasily, but Otto was neither a funny man nor prone to being spooked. Then would that, he extrapolated further, make God my son-in-law?

As was routine in in vitro fertilization, Dr. Otto Zengler, the infertility specialist, inserted three zygotes into his daughter’s uterus. In 2009, the “Octomom” had provoked new limitations on the number of zygotes allowed, but with pregnancy loss being such a risk, three was acceptable and would reasonably assure any woman that at least a single conception would survive until birth.

In Judy’s case, the odds stacked overwhelmingly in her favor: all three zygotes “took.”

Judy Zengler now carried triplets all of whom were, allegedly, our Saviors.

Otto feared the reaction of his uncle, the Cardinal. No longer just a forensic reach into the spiritual, now the whole thing reeked of overkill, offense, and travesty. His fear of the man’s reaction was not unreasonable.

“Three!” his uncle shrieked. “Three?"

“I’m afraid so,” Otto answered.

“You know, Otto, I supported you because I don’t buy the whole Shroud of Turin thing. But now that you telling me three, my mind is exploding. What if you really did it?”

“I think I did.”

“I guess, Otto, like any valid mystery, that’s also a matter of faith. Your faith that you did it, not mine. But then again, against all odds, many of which I emphasize come from the bedrock of reality, what if you really did this?”

“It would be wonderful,” Otto countered.

“Triple wonderful is not what I’m thinking. I’m thinking three boys growing up thinking they’re sons of God.”

“No, they’ll be Judy’s sons. Judy’s OK with that. We’re not going to tell them.”

“Well, then, what was the point?”

“I did it for me,” Otto answered. “Consider it my attempt at a handshake with the divine.

“No, Otto, I consider it a disaster.”

“Bringing Jesus into this world of ours?” Otto argued. “How on Earth could that be a disaster? We could use a little divine intervention right about now, don’t you think?”

“But you’re bringing three people who are—or who are not—Jesus into this world. This world! Have you looked around lately? It’s not pretty.”

“I have, Uncle. And I think for this world of ours—what it’s become—that it’s going to take about three of ‘em to do the job this time.”

Cardinal Zengler shrugged as he hung up the phone, cursing his decision to give Otto access to the Chapel of the Holy Shroud that day at the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin.

Yet, he felt it didn’t matter whether his nephew had done the impossible and miraculous—or not—because, No, he thought, even three wouldn’t be enough this time. But then he realized, tongue-of-fire-in-cheek, that the Golgotha Hill was already set up for the right number of crosses.