The influence of Pope John Paul II in world and church affairs is acknowledged by both critics and supporters. His advocacy of human rights for the last 20 years has been relentless; he rarely missed a public opportunity to challenge world leaders on their responsibilities to universal solidarity.

Jonathan Kwitney designated him "Man of the Century" because of his role in the struggle for Poland's freedom and the subsequent demise of Communism. His second pastoral visit, in June 1979, was to his native Poland, the first visit by a Pope to a communist state.

This visit marked the beginning of the non-violent movement for freedom. Throughout the 1980s, Pope John Paul II reiterated his unequivocal support for the Polish workers who spearheaded the Solidarity trade union that led the bloodless revolution.

On the verge of collapse in June 1983, another visit by John Paul II marked the turning point. By the end of his visit, Solidarity was no longer a trade union movement, but a non-violent national revolution.

Poland had led the way. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Communism, as the controlling political force in Eastern Europe, had collapsed.

His childhood friendship with Jewish children and his second World War experiences under Nazism gave him an insight into and sensitivity to Judaism never before witnessed in a Catholic Pope. The first visitor he received after his inauguration as Pope was Jerzy Kluger and his family, his oldest Jewish friend.

Pope John Paul II redefined Catholic-Jewish relationships, which culminated in the declaration of 1998, We remember: a reflection on the Shoah. This document expressed deep sorrow for the failures of individual Catholics in every age towards Jews.

It fell short of accepting the responsibility of the institutional church in the face of the Holocaust. John Paul II has been consistent in his condemnation of anti-Semitism.

His life-time's ambition was to visit the Holy Land in the year 2000: he handled this with dignity and diplomacy. The symbolic gesture of placing a prayer in the Wailing Wall, revered by Jews, was a unique moment in the history of Christian-Jewish history.

Pope John Paul II's journeys to 104 countries outside Italy indicated a desire to bring Catholicism to a wider audience. His strategy for restoration, to reposition the papacy at the centre of international affairs, was identified by Giancarlo Zizola, writing in The Tablet in 1998.

This desire was seen in his call for the cancellation of Third World debts, his castigation of the United States and its allies for carpet-bombing Iraq at the end of the Gulf War, and his joining forces with Islamic groups who opposed abortion and birth control at the Beijing Women's Conference sponsored by the United Nations in 1995.

Alongside this expansion, a parallel strategy of centralisation dictated internal church matters. Dialogue with the world was encouraged, while internal debate was suppressed. Conformity became the supreme virtue, reflected in conservative and "safe" appointments to vacant sees, and red hats.

Synods of bishops with collegial fellowship, one of the primary insights of Vatican II, were actively disallowed. Conclusions of these synods had to be submitted for papal approval before publication. Refusal to hear the voices of liberation in the Latin American Church led to the severe reprimand of third world theologians in the Instruction on Certain Aspects of Theology of Liberation in 1984.

Up to the time of his death, Pope John Paul II never acknowledged the heroism and martyrdom of Bishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador who, in solidarity with his people, led a campaign similar to those waged in Poland against totalitarianism.

On his visit to Nicaragua, Pope John Paul II humiliated the Jesuit, Ernesto Cardenal, the Minister for Education, in a very public finger-wagging exercise.

Similar treatment of Leonardo Boff led to his leaving his Franciscan order. Theological speculation on any issue was suppressed. Theologians such as Hans Küng, Edward Schillebeeckx, Leonardo Boff, Charles Curran, Lavinia Byrne and Bernard Häring were called to account. This, in effect, amounted to an ideological purge.

In the 1993 Encyclical Veritatis Splendor all critical moral theologians were dismissed as being ethical relativists. Boff and Byrne left their own congregations because of the hassle the Vatican directed towards their co-religionists.

Pope John Paul II's legacy to women almost completely ignored the contribution of 20th century feminist theology to the Christian tradition. Women's experiences have always been excluded from the church's articulation of its beliefs and teachings. Yet, the Catholic Church's official teaching continues to assign to women roles designed for them by their male leaders.

In his Apostolic Letter, Mulieris Dignitatem (1988), John Paul II reiterated the church's traditional view of women as virgins or mothers, two dimensions of motherhood that he sees united in Mary. Mary was his point of reference for understanding women. Mary was the standard by which others were measured: for John Paul II, her motherhood and the potential motherhood of every women transcended all other dimensions of women's lives.

In the early days of his pontificate, Sister Theresa Kane, an American Mercy sister, attempted to open a public dialogue with the Pope, by raising her voice on his first visit to the United States. She was reprimanded severely for her efforts. Women were never to become co-partners in dialogue.

The ongoing controversy about the ordination of women continued during his pontificate despite Pope John Paul II's attempts to stifle the debate. His 1994 letter, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, to the bishops of the Catholic Church on reserving priestly ordination to men alone, was intended to silence any further discussions on the matter.

Towards the end of the document, Pope John Paul II made acceptance of the ruling a litmus test of church membership. "I declare that the church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the church's faithful."

On the eve of the Beijing Conference on Women in 1995, Pope John Paul II wrote a letter to women. This document stands in stark contrast to his other publications about women. He acknowledged that women have "often been relegated to the margins of society and even reduced to servitude".

He recognised that cultural conditioning had often shaped thinking and acting, and "if objective blame, especially in historical contexts, has belonged to not just a few members of the church", for this, he said, "I am truly sorry".

Such insights, albeit at the close of the 20th century, were nevertheless welcomed by women inside and outside the church. The whole tone of the letter advocated a charter of equality for women in all spheres of life, political, economic, cultural.

He even called for laws to protect women from sexual violence. In his conclusion he reverted to his theme of Mary as the highest expression of the feminine genius, and then even more surprisingly stated that the journey towards women's liberation must go on!

But his letter had no concrete outcome. Speculation at the time was that Pope John Paul II was trying to establish a common front with the conservative views on women's place, held by many of the Muslim delegates.

For Pope John Paul II, Mary was the divine feminine, the ideal, the model to which all women should aspire. Throughout the centuries, Mary was interpreted by the fathers of the church through the lens of their own experiences. An elderly Sri Lankan priest, Father Tissa Balasuriya, became only the second person to be excommunicated in the pontificate of John Paul II (the other was the rebel Holy Ghost priest, Father Léfèbvre, in 1987). Father Balasuriya's crime had been to dare to make relevant the church's understanding of Mary, to the poor and oppressed women of Asia.

The treatment of this man was a denial of Christian witness at a most fundamental level. Although both Mulieris Dignitatem, and the Beijing letter had positive things to say about the need for the inclusiveness of women at all levels of society, no specific church strategy or action has followed their publication.

Recognising that women have been marginalised culturally and theologically is one thing: taking steps to bring about a discipleship of equals is another. In the complex area of sexual morality, Pope John Paul II held strongly to traditional teaching: abortion is always sinful, women raped in war must continue with any consequent pregnancy, contraception (except of the natural kind) is intrinsically evil, in vitro fertilisation is condemned.

Gender continues to be the pre-requisite for decision-makers in the Catholic Church. Women are still waiting for their experiences to be taken seriously. The question remains: did Pope John Paul II understand women the way he understood Communism and Judaism? Research and extensive consultation took place in the writing in 1991 of Centesimus Annus (one of his major encyclicals) which critiques socialism and capitalism.

The voice of experts, in this instance economists and other specialists from the business and political world, were invited to deliberate jointly with the Pope's representatives. The result was a very nuanced document which was unafraid to take a radical stance in relation to justice issues. Unfortunately, such practices failed to find their way into the documents on women. Consequently, despite all the emphasis on inclusivity, and so on, the model of womanhood which the Pope found most appealing, was the obedient motherhood of Mary.

In time, history will write John Paul II's epitaph: a complex, deeply spiritual man of strong faith, at times enigmatic and contradictory. His lasting legacy and his lasting impact on the Catholic Church will be most revealed by the Catholic Church's choice of successor. May the Spirit blow where she wills.

Gina Menzies is a theologian.