The passing of Pope John Paul II, one of the last great figures of the 20th century, is a hugely significant moment. A pope who in his youth considered becoming an actor has staged an appropriately theatrical ending, from last Sunday’s touching appearance on the Vatican balcony to the medical bulletins detailing the story of a life coming to an end. His death will be mourned not just by the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics but also by those of other faiths who warmed to his humanity. His life was a reminder that while there are many global religions, there is only one truly global religious leader.

John Paul II took this global mission to heart, becoming the first jet-age pontiff with his visits to 129 countries, and clocking up 800,000 air miles in the process, the “Popemobile” becoming almost as familiar a sight in some places as an airport taxi. He understood the way modern public relations works, the importance of visibility in a television age. He was, of course, the first pope to visit Britain. Under a less active leader than one once nicknamed “God’s athlete”, the Catholic church might have struggled.

The life of John Paul II spanned so much of our worst history. As a young Karol Wojtyla, who studied for the priesthood under the yoke of Nazi occupation in Poland, and grew to maturity in his country’s communist era, he learnt more at first hand about persecution and injustice than most. Having helped Jews to escape from Nazi persecution in his native land, he did much to atone for appeasement of the Nazis by some Catholic church leaders, asking publicly for forgiveness five years ago.

His role in opposing communism, both before and after becoming pope, added enormous moral and material force to the wind of change that blew through the Soviet bloc in the 1980s. Truly, he was a formidable enemy of the totalitarians. In that struggle he was a hero. But he was no pushover, either, for red-blooded capitalism, warning of its effects on the poor and downtrodden.

John Paul II’s reign as pope began when both God and mammon appeared to be in retreat in the West, moral decline coinciding with economic failure. Its end comes at a time of a moral and economic revival in America. President Bush was re-elected at least in part on a moral ticket. Sex scandals amongst its clergy has meant the Church has not profited from it. A bigger danger of drift is in Europe, where economic stagnation and high unemployment threaten religious and racial intolerance.

The Pope tried, but failed, to get Europe’s leaders to embody the continent’s Christian tradition in the proposed EU constitution.

The moral pendulum may be swinging from the permissiveness of the 1970s, when even a youngish John Paul stood out as a conservative. On abortion and marriage, if not contraception and the status of women and minorities, his views as he approached the end of his life no longer seemed so outmoded. Matters of life and death, whether they be the debate about prolonging the life of Terri Schiavo in America or reducing the legal limit for abortions in Britain, have made their way to the top of the agenda.

That does not mean, however, that the Catholic church has arrived at a position that is sustainable in the 21st century, or that John Paul II’s conservatism has always been a force for good. Under his papacy the Vatican’s attitudes to contraception have forced many Catholics in the West into a position of open hypocrisy, using the very birth-control methods that are frowned upon by Rome. In developing countries the effects can be more pernicious. When poorer Catholics took his words about the use of condoms at face value the effect was inevitably the spread of HIV-Aids. Any reckoning of his contribution has to be balanced by that grim reality.

Will we ever see his like again? A titan like John Paul II will always be a hard act to follow.

The candidates being lined up to replace him are mainly already in their seventies. There is a desire among the cardinals, it appears, not to have another long-serving pope. There should be a desire to have one who reaches out as effectively, urbi et orbi, to the city and the world.