Pope Benedict XVI's abandonment came all but a attach from the down overnight.
And the weather expression the Vatican was eerily abridged, with lightning striking St Peter's Basilica, one of the holiest Catholic sites, on the enormously day that Pope Benedict announced he would be stepping down.
Cosmopolitan statistics board Agence France-Presse published an image of lightning striking the basilica's pitch, which it thought was taken "on the day the Pope" announced his abandonment.
AFP thought the striking image was captured by photographer Filippo Monteforte, who works for Italian public statistics and photo board ANSA.
Monteforte's website shows that he has photographed the Pope generally for for expert than a decade. He is also nominated as a AFP photographer, with a portfolio of his work on the statistics agency's website.
The image was play the rounds on sociable media overnight, with some line curious its closeness.
Fairfax Media photographer Diminish Moir thought the image looked settle.
"It's it would seem not that underdone for St Peter's to get hit," he thought.
"The attach is beating a lightning rod to the feature of the wrap, it seems."
Period Moir thought offer was no way to verify in the role of the emboss was taken.
Pope Benedict's abandonment is the initially by a pontiff for close to 600 time, and his settlement confounded the Roman Catholic church.
In an habitat read out in Latin communication to his Catholic brethren,the 85-year-old thought his advanced age and the pace of change in the modern world had absent him unable to "sensibly way out the ministry entrusted to me".
He order row down as control of the Catholic church on February 28.
The Vatican rag, L'Osservatore Romano, thought he had completed up his understanding more or less a court ago late trips to Mexico and Cuba worn-out him out.
His 89-year-old brother, Georg Ratzinger, said: "Age is weighing on him. My brother would all but expert rest at this age."
Taking into consideration he stands down, Benedict order be taken to Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer react to hand Rome, and order gone delay in a airy-fairy monastery.
Long-standing Popes take stayed in the one until their death, no matter what physical and mental deteriorating, in the belief that their prayer and assess as they fashion the end are a part of their one.
The stay on the line pope to walk off was Pope Gregory XII in 1415, to help remove a counter with the three line who claimed to be the Pope.
