YES, IT HAPPENED. Yes, Jesus lived. Yes, He died. Yes, He rose. I am a baptized Catholic and also the loyal disciple of a great yoga master, and I cherish an intense devotion to the Divine Mother of the Universe; particularly as revealed in the Blessed Mother Mary. I am also a free-lance journalist and student of history who brings a healthy skepticism to myths and legends which are twisted to serve power structures - and I have taken some serious personal risks to expose elite corruption.
The Catholic Church was and is subject to the same corrupting influences of greed and power which infect most human institutions - particularly after it became joined to the centuries-old corruption of the Roman Empire after the conversion to Christianity of the Emperor Constantine in the year 312 A.D.
I am deeply familiar with the long grim catalogue of Catholic Church crimes of torture, religious wars, and genocidal campaigns against the Cathars, the Templars, and on to 500 years of ruthless extermination of hundreds of thousands of innocent, earth-centered healers and wise women labeled "witches" by the Inquisition. To say nothing of the tragic consequences of the Church-enabled rape of children - going back who knows how long. None of that changes or corrupts the truth of Christ and His teachings, nor of the now unassailable scientific evidence for his existence, the Gospel details of his death, and the astonishing fact of his resurrection. He was crucified at the behest of the hypocritical priestly power structure of his time - and gradually a similar power structure subsumed and corrupted the church that bears His name.
Corruption in Rome and in the power structure could not touch, however, the presence of the Universal Christ in the hearts of the contemplative orders, or of the many great souls who experienced Sacred Union with the divine Father-Mother of us all through adoration of the Christ in Jesus.
His was a message of Love and Light which transcended the need for priestly intermediary or church power. "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you." "The Light of the Body is the Eye - if therefore thine eye be Single, thy whole body shall be full of Light." Established power will always fear and seek to destroy the messengers of Freedom - "You shall know the Truth - and the Truth shall make you free."
The Shroud of Turin is the most thoroughly researched artifact in human history. A carbon-dating in the year 1988 which concluded that the linen cloth was only 700 years old has been scientifically shown to be flawed, with more recent technology confirming that the cloth is in fact 2,000 years old. It also bears pollen traces from plants which grew only in the Middle East.
The image on the Shroud cannot be duplicated and science is unable to explain it - except by the only hypothesis which accords with the evidence:
As to other evidence for the historical existence of the man, Yeshua ben Jospeh of Nazareth, even atheist historians agree that the theory of Jesus as a myth falls apart in the face of the plentiful evidence from the years immediately following his life supporting the fact of his existence, including citations by contemporary Roman historians who disdained Christianity.
I do not hold that any soul must believe in the life, message, and Resurrection of Christ in order to achieve "salvation." What I do believe - and have experienced - is that His grace, message, and teachings as embodied in the miraculous reality of His return from death are a divine dispensation to all of the children of our Mother-Father-Friend-Beloved God - a way of blessed return for all of us who have wandered away from our true home.
Happy Easter to us all! And let us rejoice together in the return of Light and the triumph of Love.