It’s Stuart’s first law of blogging that the number of things worth blogging about is inversely proportional to the time available to write.

So it has proved to be over the last few days.

I’ve spent more time in church than a nun over the last couple of days as I shuttled from one mass to the next gathering material for reports on Poland’s response to the Pope’s death.

The affection with which the Pope is held in his home country has led to some rather ghoulish suggestions, none more so than the call by some senior Polish church leaders for the Pontiff’s heart to be removed and buried alongside medieval kings and saints at Wawel Cathedral here in Krakow.

There is a precedent here for dismembering the bodies of great figures so their remains can be venerated. Frederic Chopin’s heart is kept in an urn in a church in Warsaw, while the rest of his body is buried in Paris.

Many here would dearly love a relic from the Pope’s body to rest on Polish soil.

“That would be, for us, the most precious treasure,” said Janusz Bielanski, canon of Wawel Cathedral.

But it seems extremely unlikely that Father Bielanski’s wish will be realised.

“There was once this Romantic custom that after death parts of the body of known and loved people be placed in important places,” said Cardinal Franciszek Macahrski of Krakow.

“This tradition is no longer ours. Respect for the human body says that it ought to be laid in a grave.”

Pope John Paul II will almost certainly rest in peace, in one piece, at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.