QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Q.  Dear Sir, I have a question. Most of the time, it is the negative of the photograph of the Holy Face on the
         Holy Shroud that is venerated and not the positive version. With the positive version, we have Christ's Holy Face
         facing us and with the negative we look through His Holy Face as from behind a mask. With all these in mind, is it
         permissible to venerate the negative version ?
         Best regards
         Stephen Ho

A.  Dear Stephen,
         You ask, Is it permissible to venerate the negative version? First of all, it sounds like you might be Catholic.
         If you are asking, Is it permissible by the Catholic Church, the answer is yes. Negative or positive, it does not
         matter, the Catholic Church permits the veneration of Holy Images.
              It might help if I quote from; The Apostolic Letter of The Supreme Pontiff To The Episcopate Of The Catholic
          Church On The Occasion Of The 1200th Anniversary Of The Second Council Of Nicea, Titled: Duodecimum Saeculum
          (Veneration Of Holy Images):  8. The terrible "quarrel over images" that tore the Byzantine Empire apart under the
          Isaurian emperors Leo III and Constantine V, between 730 and 780, and again under Leo V, from 814 to 843, is
          explained mainly by the theological debate which was originally at stake. Without ignoring the danger of an ever
          possible resurgence of the idolatrous practices of paganism, the Church permitted that the Lord, the Blessed Virgin
          Mary, the martyrs and the saints should be represented in pictorial form or in sculpture to sustain the prayer and
          devotion of the faithful. It was clear to everyone, according to Saint Basil's formula recalled at Nicaea II, that "the
          honor rendered to the icon reaches the prototype."(29) In the West, Pope Saint Gregory the Great had insisted on
          the didactic aspect of the paintings in the churches, which were useful for the illiterate "to read on the walls what
          they were incapable of reading in books," and stressed that this contemplation should lead to the adoration of the
          "one and omnipotent Holy Trinity." (30) It is in that context that there developed, particularly in Rome in the eighth
          century, the cult of images of the saints which gave rise to an admirable artistic production.

            Icon writer, Leontius the Hierapolian, wrote about the Christian use of images:

I sketch and paint Christ and the sufferings of Christ in churches, in homes, in public squares and on icons, on linen cloth, in closets, on clothes, and in every place I paint so that men may see them plainly, may remember them and not forget them . . . And as thou, when thou makest thy reverence to the Book of the Law, bowest down not to the substance of skins and ink, but to the sayings of God that are found therein, so I do reverence to the image of Christ. Not to the substance of wood and paint – that shall never happen . . . But, by doing reverence to an inanimate image of Christ, through Him I think to embrace Christ Himself and to do Him reverence . . . We Christians, by bodily kissing an icon of Christ, or of an apostle or martyr, are in spirit kissing Christ Himself or His martyr.
Hope this helps,
Don