A publicity stunt featuring a life-size wax figure of Pope Francis appearing to wave from the back of a convertible caused some confusion before the real pontiff showed up in New York.

Officials at Madame Tussauds New York revealed their wax pope yesterday, showing the white-robed figure off around Manhattan in a popemobile-like car hours before Francis' plane arrived.

But spokeswoman Hillary Karsten said a surprised onlooker called police after mistakenly believing the figure was actually the pope.

She said police officials contacted Madame Tussauds to make sure their pope was in fact wax.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.