Late pope John Paul II's coffin was laid to rest on Monday in Saint
Peter's basilica near the famous Pieta statue by Michelangelo, a day
after the ceremony that put him on the path to sainthood.
The
coffin was sealed under the altar in a chapel at a private ceremony
attended by a few senior clergy -- in contrast to the grand Vatican mass
on Sunday in which he was beatified in front of more than a million
people.
Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi informed reporters of the burial.
Hundreds
of thousands of pilgrims on Sunday and earlier on Monday filed past the
simple wooden coffin, which was exhumed from a Vatican crypt on Friday
and placed in the basilica for people to pay their respects to the
former pontiff.
John Paul II's was a historic papacy that helped
bring down Communism in his native Poland and reinvigorated the Church
but he was also criticised for his conservative social views and for
failing to act against paedophile priests.