Pope looks upon Holy Face icon in Italy

0 Comments | AFP, September, 2006

VATICAN CITY (AFP) — Pope Benedict XVI paid homage to the Holy Face, an icon believed to bear a print of the face of Jesus Christ, housed at a monastery in central Italy. The image is said by some Catholic faithful to have been miraculously printed on the cloth when Christ's face came into contact with it after his death.

Other believers specialising in such relics say it may have been formed photographically by a flash of light that they believe accompanied the crucified Christ's resurrection. It has been held since the 17th century in the Holy Face Sanctuary monastery in the village of Manoppello, in the Abruzzo region east of Rome, where the pope arrived on Friday morning. Henrich Pfeiffer, a Jesuit priest and art historian at the pontifical Gregorian University of Rome,...