http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/apr2005/pope-a06.shtml
Notwithstanding his right-wing views, John Paul II was always deeply conscious that the Church can fulfil its function as a prop of the established order only if it postures as a protector of the oppressed. He wrote numerous texts on Catholic social doctrine in which he denounced capitalist excesses and social evils. On a journey to Cuba, he sharply criticised neo-liberalism and its effects.
This criticism was in no way directed against the capitalist order itself. Since socialism first emerged in the late nineteenth century as a significant force in the working class, the Catholic Church has attempted to counter its influence by articulating a social doctrine that, while condemning socialist revolution, makes limited criticisms of capitalism and speaks sympathetically about the plight of workers and poor people. John Paul II worked very much within that tradition. Thus, he rejected socialism in principle as an atheist doctrine in the Encyclical “Centesimus Annus.”
The clear position taken by the pope against the first and second Iraq wars must be seen in this connection. With its one-and-a-half-thousand-year-old tradition, the Catholic hierarchy thinks in longer time spans than bourgeois politicians fixated on the short term. The Vatican is aware that the ruthless conduct of the US in the Middle East threatens in the long-run to destabilise the entire capitalist world order—including the Catholic Church.
and now for some apologia:-
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/04/1336240
AMY GOODMAN: And capitalism?
BLASE BONPANE: And on capitalism, extremely interesting. We saw that he had a horror of Soviet communism, but when it came time for the first conference that he attended in Puebla in Mexico – I was there, and Archbishop Romero was present -- this was 1979. The condemnation at Puebla was of unrestrained capital. He was very much against the deregulation. He was very much against what is called neoliberalismo today, the 19th century laissez-faire capitalism that showed only regard for profit and no regard for the common good. So to the surprise of everyone at that conference, the only thing condemned in the conference was unrestrained capital, and Marxist analysis was kept as a methodology that was fully acceptable. He was not talking about people becoming Marxist, as such, but the use of Marxist analysis, that is, to recognize class warfare, to recognize the lack of distributive justice in society, was completely acceptable. So these things were on the positive side. And it was curious that prior to the conference in Puebla, the newspapers were coming out saying Pope John Paul II condemns liberation theology. It just didn't happen. It was that the capitalist world was so afraid of what liberation theology implied that they wanted to condemn it in the press before the Pope even made a statement on it. So that part was of great interest to all of us, and liberation theology is simply a response to imperial theology, which has been with us since 312 A.D., since the time of Constantine, the emperor becoming a Christian. He brought the sword into Christianity and conversion by way of the sword, and that was ultimately seen in the Crusades, in the Inquisition, in the conquistadores. And these are all things for which Pope John Paul II apologized. He was horrified by Church history, and that included the Holocaust. I don't know of any pope that had apologized for the history of the Church prior to him. So he was an extremely complex man. And there are many, many facets to this person, some that we're sorry about and many that we find quite unusual.