[Virgin Mary appears on pizza pan]

<img src="http://i12.tinypic.com/346xfz5.jpg">

Devout churchgoers have begun worshipping a pizza pan - after claiming the Virgin Mary has appeared amid the melted cheese, tomato and pepperoni.

Dinner ladies at a school in Texas discovered what they took to be Mary's image on the base of a cooking tray.

Sceptics may say it looks like little more than a random, formless stain.

But after fevered scrubbing failed to shift it, rumour spread of a divine apparation - and now pilgrims have been flocking to a makeshift shrine in the tray's honour.

One woman came to the school in Houston seeking healing for her disabled grandson.

School canteen worker Guadalupe Rodriguez, who first spotted the mark on Ash Wednesday, said: 'On the third rinse I started watching it, trying to discover what it was. 'It showed to me like it is the Virgin Mary.' Pupil Anel Villareal said: 'They said, "The Virgin is in the cafeteria" and I ran over there to see. 'My God, it was the Virgin. I cried when I see her with my own eyes.'

Pugh Elementary School principal Lyda Guerrero said: 'I think someone was watching over us.

'I think someone is watching over this community and this school district and this school."

A shrine, with the tray at its centre, has now been set up outside the home of a parent teacher association member, but others are claiming they should have custody.

In the past, the Virgin Mary has been said to appear on a toasted cheese sandwich in Florida, a Chicago underpass and a blob of dried chocolate at a Californian factory.