He was both thoroughly modern and deeply feudal. Which will prevail?

The tributes to Pope John Paul II have bombarded the world with a welter of extraordinary detail which reflects the life of an extraordinary individual. Yet beneath it all lies a key question: to what extent did the Polish pontiff redefine the papacy in a way which will prove a binding legacy for the man who succeeds him?

John Paul II was a pope who was singularly of his time, and yet also a man who stood in contra-distinction to it. He understood the importance of celebrity in the contemporary world. His travels ensured he was seen in the flesh by more people than any other person in human history. His charismatic personality and showmanship made his office both more public and politically potent in a manner which was decidedly modern. But his intellectual and administrative authoritarianism has left a legacy which is deeply conservative and returned the Roman Catholic church to a feudal certainty. Which of these will endure?

Commentators have in recent days talked of the challenges facing the next pope in terms of issues like birth control, abortion, stem-cell research, celibacy, women priests, gay marriages and clerical sex abuse. But all these are merely symptoms. The pivotal issue when it comes to selecting the next pope will be none of these. It will be a debate on the extent to which the church needs to revert to the central insight of the great reforming Second Vatican Council, in the 1960s, that authority in the church lies not with the Pope but with the bishops and with the laity as "the people of God".

The code by which this is discussed inside the church is "collegiality". At its heart is a theological debate about which came first, the universal church or the local church. The medieval idea was that the universal church came first. That placed the papacy in charge, with local churches, each led by its own bishop, therefore subordinate to the Pope. Papal infallibility was the 19th-century high-point of this notion.

But Vatican II looked back to the church in the first millennium when bishops, along with the Pope, governed the church as a "college" in succession to the apostles. Collegiality was supposed to curb the power of the notoriously secretive papal bureaucracy, the Roman Curia. But over the long quarter of a century in which John Paul II held office, the opposite happened. The Curia systematically undermined the notion. John Paul II's presidential style of papacy has been one of increasing centralisation.

Perhaps no one should have been surprised. Having spent his entire life under Nazism, then communism, and finally in the Vatican, the late Pope never lived outside a framework of dictatorial absolutism. With no real experience of a pluralistic, democratic society it was inevitable that he would move from being first-among-equals with his brother bishops to becoming an absolute autocrat as the popes of medieval times had been.

Gatherings of bishops were called with agendas determined by the Pope. They were not allowed to discuss preliminary documents with bishops from other lands. Participants were allowed only to read prepared texts, limiting real debate. Their recommendations to the Pope were kept secret, and were often rejected. Their final reports were written and issued by the Pope after the bishops had returned home. Bishops who did not agree were gradually replaced by Rome with bishops whose conservatism often outstripped their pastoral ability. And the style of governance spread throughout the church. Theologians were instructed to be docile. Nuns were told to resume wearing their habit. The faithful were simply to pray, pay and obey. The man who fought so hard for glasnost in the Eastern bloc would have none of it in his own church.

Commentators often talk of traditionalists and progressives in the church. Like many simplifications, this is deeply misleading. For a start, to get to any position of power in the Catholic church you have to be pretty orthodox in your core beliefs; those described as modernisers are not exactly wild men.

But more significantly, there are vital disagreements among the "conservatives". Some are primarily focused on the need for doctrinal clarity, to contrast the views of the church starkly with those of secular society. Others are primarily concerned with protecting the institutional interests of the church. Others favour a hard line on moral principles but a pastoral approach which is more understanding of human weaknesses.

The joke in Rome is that after a fat pope there is always a thin one. The conventional wisdom is that cardinals always elect the opposite of what they have just had. After a young pope, an old one. After a communicator, a quiet thinker. After a prophet, a pastor. After a visionary, a capable administrator. After an innovator, a consolidator.

The trouble is that John Paul II, the Super Pope, fulfilled all these roles. But the one thing he clearly was not was a pontiff of collegial persuasion. The only safe prediction is that the forthcoming Conclave is bound to put that at the top of its considerations. The church, being against cloning, will not be looking for another Karol Wojtyla.