The church, located in the late pontiff’s hometown of Wadowice in southern Poland, stands meters away from the house where he was born.
Local inhabitants and pilgrims, some from as far away as the United States and Ireland, mourned the 84-year-old pope’s death on Saturday and draped the statue with flowers and lit candles before it.
The statue, commissioned five years ago for the pope’s 80th birthday, had been on display in the town hall.
Pope John Paul II, born Karol Wojtyla in a house just meters away from the basilica on May 18, 1920, died at 9:37 p.m. Saturday in his private apartment at the Vatican after a long struggle with illness. — AFP