ROME — Early on Wednesday morning, hours after Cardinal Bernard F. Law died in a Rome hospital, a priest unlocked a small chapel at the Basilica of St. Mary Major and pointed to the spot under the marble altar and life-size crucifix where the once-mighty American prelate had arranged to be buried.

“It’s all ready,” Msgr. Gino Di Ciocco said solemnly. “It’s only for him.”

The church, one of Rome’s four great ancient basilicas, is where Cardinal Law had the honor of serving for more than a decade, first in 2004 as archpriest and, after his retirement in 2011, as archpriest emeritus. Those positions followed his resignation in disgrace as archbishop of Boston in 2002 amid revelations that he had systematically covered up the rampant sexual abuse of minors.

For many, Cardinal Law became the face of a complicit church hierarchy that hid and enabled sexual abuse, a scandal that has had a lasting impact on the credibility of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States.