Several officials in Krakow, where Pope John Paul II served as archbishop, say they hope his heart can be buried in their cathedral alongside Poland's medieval kings and saints.
Most popes in recent centuries have been buried in the St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. While John Paul's wishes have not yet been made public, many in Poland hope that at least a part of him could be laid to rest in Krakow's Wawel Cathedral.
"We would like the heart of the greatest Krakovian and the greatest Pole to rest at Wawel,'' Krakow Mayor Jacek Majchrowski was quoted as saying Monday by the Gazeta Wyborcza daily. " But the rules are set by the church and we will respect them.''
City spokesman Marcin Helbin told The Associated Press: "Having the heart of the greatest citizen of Krakow lay in Wawel would be the greatest honor for us.''
The heart of another famed Pole, composer Frederic Chopin, rests in an urn in Warsaw's Holy Cross Church, although the rest of his body is buried at Paris's Pere Lachaise Cemetery.
The pope is revered in overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Poland as a national as well as spiritual leader for his role in inspiring resistance to the communist regime, which fell peacefully in 1989-90. His life has special meaning in Krakow, where he studied for the priesthood and rose within the church from a young priest to bishop, archbishop and cardinal.
He celebrated his first Mass as a young priest in the 12th-century crypt of St. Leonard beneath the cathedral.
"It would be would be one of the most wonderful gifts and treasures that this sanctuary would possess,'' Janusz Bielanski, a priest at Wawel Cathedral, was quoted by Gazeta Wyborcza as saying.
But Polish church leaders dismissed the likelihood.
"We should not pay attention to things that are pure inventions,'' Krakow's Cardinal Franciszek Macharski said Sunday.
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