Much as I disagree with the generally anti-progressive syance of the late Pope (which was not entirely a personal quirk of his, but rather the long-standing policy of the institution he headed), I think he deserves tremendous credit for reconciliation with the Jewish people as well as with other religions (including Islam).

Also, no one will convince me that his support of Solidarity did not have a great deal to do with the fall of Soviet Communism. The sponsors of his attempted assasination apparently felt the same way, too. Of coure, the simple fact that he was a Pole and had lived under both Nazi/fascist and Soviet/communist totalitarianism, and that he became the first non-Italian Pope in centuries, set him up in a unique historical position.

Yes, the spending war was the straw the broke the Soviet camel's back, but without the widespread defiant non-violent resistance of whole populations, first in Poland and later throughout Eastern Europe and Russia, the whole structure of Communist rule wouldn't have fallen apart nearly so suddenly.

By the way, for the record, the immediate halt/reversal to the Church reforms that grew out of Vatican II should be credited to John XXIII's immediate successor Paul VI ~ not to the recently departed JPII.