Obituaries
Fr. Adam Otterbein, C.Ss.R
Fr. Adam Otterbein, C.Ss.R., President
of the United States Holy Shroud Guild, and, with Fr. Peter Rinaldi, its
co-founder, died on June 9, 1998 in Saratoga, New York, after having been
in failing health for some while. He was 82. He was buried on Saturday
June 13 at the Redemptorist Cemetery at Saratoga Springs, New York.
Fr. Adam was professed a priest on
August 2, 1936 and ordained June 21, 1941. My most vivid Fr.Otterbein
memory is being driven as a back-seat passenger by him in the tiniest
of Fiats through Turins crowded streets, with Fr. Rinaldi as navigator
and Fr. Adam, with a patience greater than Jobs, repeatedly needing
to prompt You want a left, Father? as Father Peter concentrated
more on animated conversation than on any direction giving. It was characteristic
of Fr. Adam to be the ever-practical and pragmatic Martha to Fr. Peters
Mary of Luke 10: 38-42. Fr. Kim Dreisbach said of him: He was the glue
that kept the Holy Shroud Guild together and whose organizational skills,
fidelity to empiricism and competence in many skills. played a major role
in promoting and investigating the Shroud. If his co-worker Father Peter
Rinaldi, SDB opened the doors for the 1978 investigation by STURP, it
was Father Adam who made certain that the necessary support and organizational
skills made entry through those doors a reality. Father Adam also
played a key role enabling the award-winning Shroud documentary The Silent
Witness to come into being.
Cardinal Anastasio Ballestrero, O.C.D.,
Archbishop Emeritus of Turin
Cardinal Anastasio Ballestrero,
Cardinal Saldarini's predecessor as the Shroud's custodian on behalf of
the Pope, died on June 21 of this year, at the age of 84. It was he who
presided over the STURP testing in 1978 and the Shroud carbon dating in
1988, in the latter instance receiving much criticism for his acceptance
of the scientific findings on behalf of the Catholic Church.
Received into the Carmelite
order at the age of 16, Anastasio Ballestrero was ordained a priest in
1936 and after initially serving as Bishop of Bari he was appointed Archbishop
of Turin from 1978 to 1989. Among Turins Cardinal-Archbishops Ballestrero
stands out rather as a Pope John XXIII character, with much the same
build and man-of-the-people air. Photographs taken at the time of the
taking of the samples for the radiocarbon dating show him resting with
his elbows on the Shroud, and there have long been rumours that he personally
did not believe it authentic even before the carbon dating. Yet last year,
in newspaper interviews, he was reported claiming that he believed in the
Shrouds authenticity, also that freemasonry had played a part in recent
attempts to discredit both it and the Catholic Church as a whole.
Dr. Enrique Rivero-Borrell Vasquez
Dr. Rivero-Borell Vasquez
was founder-president of the Centro Mexicano di Sindonologia, the British
Society for the Turin Shrouds Mexican counterpart, and well represented
with delegates attending the Turin Congress. He died on 17 October, after
a long struggle with bladder cancer. Adolfo Orozco of the Centro
Mexicano writes: His last wish was that we continue the search for the
message that Jesus Christ put in this cloth [i.e. the Shroud]. In a future
time we will give you a more detailed account of the work that Enrique
made to study and spread the different studies, medical, scientific, historical,
etc. and his beautiful sculpture works of Christ in the cross, and other
artistic works made by him. The Society extends its condolences to the
Centro Mexicano at this time of their loss.