Driving down Via Ubaldo degli Ubaldi on a winter’s morning I had a vision; not a religious vision, but one of those quirks of perspective that are a feature of Rome’s meteorological and geographical make-up. Straight ahead was the cupola of St Peter’s against a background of snow-capped mountains. It was as if the gargantuan basilica had gone hiking, or the Appenine peaks were taking a city break. Rome is like that, just like – pace folksinger Joni Mitchell – clouds, love and life. You think you know them, and then something happens to show you them in a different light, from the other side, upside-down, whatever. And I might add that assessing John Paul II’s record in the field of ecumenical relations, especially his dealing with Anglicans, is an analogous procedure.

An important exchange of greetings between two Churches: Pope John Paul II and the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

It’s not just that relations blew hotter and colder, but that at a particularly frigid moment something really encouraging happened. So for example, when all the good nature and human warmth of Karol Wojtyla seemed to be trapped in a broken body, and when any genuine enthusiasm for ecumenism he had shown in the past seemed hedged round by ascendant Vatican right-wingers, he went and responded to the Archbishop of Canterbury kissing his hand and ring by doing the same back. The impulsiveness of John Paul II was always to the benefit of ecumenism. In the years immediately following his 1978 election, Christians of all denominations listened to John Paul II precisely because his personal style was so unstuffy. As a schoolboy I well remember the excitement of waiting for hours outside Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral with thousands of other non-Catholics just to see him walk into the building, say the Lord’s prayer, bless us and walk out again. Even if you disagreed with what he was saying, about the impossibility of women’s ordination or the absolute immorality of artificial birth-control (even in a world faced by HIV infection), you could still respect him not just for his office, but because he transmitted a love for life. And then gradually as not only his style but the content of his message seemed to swing back to ages of conservative pontiffs pronouncing from thrones, he could still surprise you by stands against war and capital punishment that won him more than respect from every part of the Christian family.

John Paul II inherited good relations with the Anglican Communion, an international theological commission, the ARCIC, that was drawing the two traditions closer together, and a mood that favoured ecumenism. At the end of his pontificate, things looked very different. The Vatican seemed dominated by those who had little time for the search for unity if it didn’t mean strict obedience to the Roman Church’s ‘magisterium’ (its ability to teach authoritatively); the Anglican world seemed in disarray; whilst many enthusiasts for the project looked to be suffering burn-out. No outlook for an ecumenical future then? Perhaps, but appearances often deceive. Let’s see what was actually achieved under John Paul II.

The peak of his contribution to ecumenism was the 1995 encyclical letter Ut unum sint, named from a citation of St John’s Gospel in which Jesus, praying for his followers, asks “that they may be one.” In this document, the pope acknowledged that the papacy itself was currently an obstacle to unity, and asked for comment on a future papacy from dialogue partners. Add this to repeated assertions that there would be no turning back on the road to unity, such as in the Great Jubilee’s inter-confessional liturgies, and the official papal position was fixed. No amount of Vatican quibbling over the actual content of bilateral agreements, like those of ARCIC II on the extent and character of the papal primacy “The Gift of Authority”, could take away the expressed papal opinion that a reform of the papacy was needed to achieve unity. In effect Ut unum sint, building on the insights of 30 years of ecumenical sharing, ratified the value of entering into such processes.

Although couched, like much papal teaching, in language that speaks of the future, its effect was to strengthen what had already been done in the past. So strengthened has it become that it will be impossible ever to remove it from any papal agenda. If this appeals very little to some Vatican policy-makers, it delights others, and one cannot assess John Paul II’s contribution to this field without touching on the work of Cardinals Willibrands, Cassidy and Kaspar, who successively headed the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity under him, and that of many Catholic theologians who contributed to a plethora of bilateral dialogues. So whatever the “mood” may be, the actual position is clear – papal reform for the sake of unity is officially on the table for discussion.

As for the state of the Anglican Communion, even that is to some part a mark of the success of the dialogue with Rome. A good deal of the reasoned (as opposed to irrational) hesitation over the ordination of an openly gay bishop in the American Episcopal Church comes from the Anglican Churches’ wish to take seriously their responsibilities to the Roman Church with whom they share some, if not full, communion. Even if it’s not their first concern, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other Primates are proceeding in their handling of this situation very mindful of how their actions will be judged by Rome. Whether one likes it or not, it points to the success of the ecumenical process.

John Paul II’s style was to be impulsively generous, his policy to be firmly conservative. The first truly sprang from him, the second was most thoroughly promoted by his Vatican. Some have felt he ought to have controlled his Curia more in the service of what he really wanted, or at least got the various dicasteries to speak to one another, and engage in joined-up thinking. Set against a general failure to do this, his own contribution will always be judged to have been paradoxical – but there can be no doubting that his own heart was in the search for unity.

Father Jonathan Boardman is chaplain of All Saints’ Anglican church in Rome.