Pope John Paul II 'appears' in bonfire vision*

By Laura Clout
Last Updated: 12:52pm BST 16/10/2007

 From Mother Theresa in a cinammon bun, to the Virgin Mary on a toasted
cheese sandwich - images resembling religious icons are regularly
spotted in unlikely places.

Pope John Paul II and the bonfire near the town of his birth

Now this fiery figure - photographed in a bonfire in Poland - is being
hailed as Pope John Paul II making a fiery appearance from beyond the
grave. Some critical pundits of the Catholic church said it goes to
prove the Pope was in the ever burning flames of Hell.

Dressed in robes, slightly hunched and his right hand raised in
blessing, the image appeared during a ceremony to mark the second
anniversary of the pontiff's death.

The photograph has since been shown repeatedly on Italian television,
and a religious website displaying the image crashed as thousands logged
on to see it for themselves.

The bonfire was lit during a service on April 2, at Beskid Zywiecki -
near the Holy Father's birthplace in Wadowice, southern Poland.

Hundreds of the superstitious attended the ceremony and Polish cameraman
Gregorz Lukasik captured the image on his new camera.

He contacted Father Jarek Cielecki, director of Rome's Vatican News
Service and a close friend of John Paul II, who then travelled to Poland
himself.

Mr Lukasik said: "It was only afterwards when I got home and looked at
the pictures that I realised I had something.

"I showed them to my brother and sister and they, like me, were
convinced the flames had formed the image of Pope John Paul II.

"There is a tongue of flame to one side which resembles his right arm
raised as if giving a blessing.