After Vatican II, many Catholics hoped (or feared) that the Catholic Church would proceed down a path of greater liberalization — but such expectations were not been fulfilled by John Paul II who consistently pushed a very conservative and traditionalist course. Although never Pope John Paul II formally repudiated the liberalizing decisions made in Vatican II, he nevertheless focused on limiting them as much as possible and restricting them in practical matters.
Throughout his reign John Paul II consistently opposed efforts to liberalize Catholic teachings on things like contraception, abortion, homosexuality and female priests. Perhaps more important, however, was been his work at centralizing Church control.
One of the hopes after Vatican II was the possibility that local diocese would gain greater control over their affairs, but in fact John Paul II increased the degree of centralization and Vatican control over church matters. In some ways, John Paul acted like the bishop of every diocese and treated the local bishops as if they were merely middle-management. There were even been large protests in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland over the appointment of unpopular bishops (it should be noted that in the early church history, bishops were elected by local congregations — even Augustine was elected).
John Paul II encouraged the spread of conservative and traditionalist forces through Catholic movements which were answerable only to the pope rather than to the “usual channels” of church hierarchy. Examples included groups like Opus Dei and Communion and Liberation. On the other hand, he opposed movements which did not have enough influence from conservative Catholic traditions — the most important example of that was Liberation Theology.
The purpose of Pope John Paul II’s conservativism seems to have been the promotion of a distinct Catholic identity. Although he encouraged ecumenical movements, he operated under the premise that ecumenicism must proceed as if Catholicism were right and deviations from Catholicism deserve varying degrees of toleration. The most obvious features of his papacy were the promotion of that which maked Catholicism distinct from other forms of Christianity: papal infallibility, devotion to Mary, condemnation of birth control, the special role of priests, etc.
