You have written about devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus. I believe the Holy Face is on the shroud of Turin, but my question is whether the veil with which Veronica wiped Jesus’ face on the way to Calvary is still in existence, and, if so, where is it?
Let us begin by saying that the tradition of Veronica wiping the face of Jesus commemorated in the sixth Station of the Cross is not found in Scripture, but only in tradition. One of the written sources of the tradition is the apocryphal Acts of Pilate.
This work, also known as the Gospel of Nicodemus, is a text, likely written in Greek, that purports to be an official report by Pontius Pilate to the Roman Emperor Tiberius, detailing Jesus’ trial and crucifixion. St Justin Martyr (ca. 150 AD) and Tertullian (ca. 180 AD) both refer to it in their writings.
Today, there are two cloths for which the claim is made that they are the veil that Veronica used to wipe the face of Jesus.
One is kept by the Vatican in St Peter’s Basilica, and the other is in the Shrine of the Holy Face in Manoppello, a town in the province of Pescara, northeast of Rome. In this column I will write about the Vatican veil and in the next about the one in Manoppello.
The one in St Peter’s Basilica has been venerated since the Middle Ages as the cloth that Veronica used to wipe the face of Jesus, leaving on it a miraculous image of his face.
The image on this veil today, however, is extremely faint, and many scholars think the original veil may have been lost, replaced, or deteriorated over time, especially during events like the Sack of Rome in 1527.
It is possible that this veil was present in St Peter’s as early as the papacy of Pope John VII (705–708), since a chapel known as the Veronica chapel was built there during his reign.
In 1011 a scribe was identified as the keeper of the cloth, indicating that the veil was there. Firm records of that veil begin only in 1199, when two pilgrims, Gerald de Barri and Gervase of Tilbury, wrote accounts at different times of their visits to Rome, in which they mentioned the existence of the veil of Veronica.
Shortly after that, in 1207, the cloth became more prominent when it was publicly taken in procession and displayed by Pope Innocent III, who also granted indulgences to anyone praying before it.
The procession, between St Peter’s and the Santo Spirito Hospital, became an annual event. On one such occasion, in 1300, Pope Boniface VIII was inspired to proclaim the first Jubilee Year, during which the veil was publicly displayed.
It became one of the Mirabilia Urbis, or Wonders of the City, for the pilgrims who visited Rome. For the next two hundred years, the veil in St Peter’s was regarded as the most precious of all Christian relics.
In 1436, Pedro Tafur, a Spanish visitor to Rome, described how the veil was removed from one of the pillars of St Peter’s by lifting it through the roof, after which it was displayed before the people, who gathered to see it in such numbers that they were pressing on each other to a point where their lives were in danger.
In the sixteenth century many copies of the image were made, but in 1616 Pope Paul V prohibited the making of more reproductions, except those made by a canon of St Peter’s.
And in 1629, Pope Urban VIII ordered the destruction of all existing copies, declaring that all copies should be brought to the Vatican under penalty of excommunication.
In the seventeenth century the veil was found in a relic chamber built by Bernini into one of the columns supporting the dome of St Peter’s.
Near the column is an alcove with a five-metre-tall statue of Veronica by Francesco Mochi, commissioned by Pope Urban VIII in 1629. Above it is a balcony with a chapel where the veil is kept today.
In a tradition dating back to the seventeenth century, the veil is put on display each year on the fifth Sunday of Lent, Passion Sunday, on the balcony above the statue of Veronica.
There does not seem to be any record of how the veil came to be taken from Jerusalem in the first century to Rome centuries later.
