WARSAW — For centuries, it was a custom to remove the heart of a beloved person who died abroad and bring it back to native soil.
Polish composer Frederic Chopin died in Paris in 1849 and was buried in that city's Pere Lachaise Cemetery. But his heart rests here in Warsaw, in an urn placed in a pillar of the Holy Cross Church, near the palace where Chopin had last lived in Poland. A verse from the Gospel of Matthew, "Where your treasure is, there will also be your heart," is inscribed on a plaque on the pillar, which generations of music lovers have visited.
Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, the military leader who regained Poland's independence in 1918 and guided the country until his death in 1935, lies with the medieval Polish kings and queens in a dim, much-visited crypt beneath Wawel Cathedral in Krakow. But as he had requested, his heart was placed next to his mother's remains in what was then Wilno, Poland, and now is Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.
Now, at least some Poles are saying they wish the custom could be followed in the case of Pope John Paul II, who left the country to become pontiff in 1978 yet, they believe, never really left it in spirit.
Although the Vatican has announced that John Paul will be interred Friday alongside most of his papal predecessors in the crypt below St. Peter's Basilica, some Poles said Monday that they regretted that the pontiff apparently had not left a will or testament instructing that at least his heart be allowed to journey home.
The mayor of Krakow, where Karol Wojtyla was archbishop for the 14 years immediately before becoming pope, raised the possibility in comments to newspapers Sunday.
"We would want the heart of the greatest resident of Krakow and of the greatest Pole to rest at the Wawel," said Mayor Jacek Majchrowski.
"But it is the church that makes the rules, and we will respect them," he told Gazeta Wyborcza, a national newspaper.
Cardinal Franciszek Macharski, a friend of the pope's who succeeded him as archbishop and often played host to him on his return visits to Krakow, told another newspaper that bringing back the heart was a custom not appropriate in the modern world. He said it harked back to the times when relics of saints and martyrs were distributed to churches and pilgrimage sites so that people could visit and feel closer to the departed figure.
