A monument to John Paul II was inaugurated Saturday at Rakowicki cemetery in Krakow, where the late pope's family are buried.
The 1.6-metre high bronze, by sculptor Czeslaw Dzwigaj, depicts the pope kneeling on a prie-dieu, or kneeling desk.
Dzwigaj finished the monument four years ago but Krakow city authorities decided at the time not to place it in the cemetery.
On his visits as pope to his native Poland, John Paul II often prayed at the family grave at Rakowicki cemetery, where his parents and elder brother Edmund are buried.
Monuments to the pope are to be erected in several cities and towns around Poland, including Wadowice in the south, where the pope was born Karol Wojtyla on May 18, 1920, and at Pilsudski Square in Warsaw.
Pilsudski Square was one of the high holy places in John Paul II's pontificate, as it was there that on June 10, 1979 he uttered the memorable phrase: "May the spirit come down and renew the face of this land."
Those words were interpreted by many Poles as an exhortation to stand up to the communist regime and allow a new Poland to be born.
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