Flame in picture of bonfire said to resemble Pope John Paul II

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Story Published: Oct 19, 2007 at 7:33 AM PDT

By Associated Press

WARSAW, Poland (AP) - A photo of a bonfire taken by a Polish construction worker is creating a stir for the resemblance of the flames to a silhouette of the country's beloved son, the late Pope John Paul II.

The picture of the flames - said to resemble a silhouette of the pope bending in a gesture of blessing - has been featured in newspapers across Poland and other countries, including Germany and Italy.

Grzegorz Lukasik, 26, snapped the photo April 2 at a mountainside ceremony marking the second anniversary of the pope's death.

During John Paul's nearly 27-year papacy, villagers would light a fire on the Matyska mountain in southern Poland as a greeting to him when he would visit the area.

The Lukasik family showed the picture to Jadwiga Klimonda, of their Roman Catholic parish of St. Martin, and she posted it on a Web site dedicated to the pope, where it attracted media attention. There was no word if the photo had been evaluated to determine if it may have been altered.

"Let's be serious. We keep getting messages of this kind of things all the time - that someone saw Wojtyla's profile on a kitchen tile or that someone saw an angel on pictures from a funeral," Polish Monsignor Slawomir Oder, who is spearheading the cause to make the late pope a saint, was quoted as saying by Poland's PAP news agency. "The beatification process bases on things much, much more serious."

He was referring to John Paul by his given name, Karol Wojtyla.

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