As world leaders hailed Pope John Paul as a force for peace, Catholic reformers critical of his traditionalist stand on Church dogmas took issue with his 26-year papacy, which ended with his death on Saturday.

Supporters credited the Polish Pontiff with playing a major role in the fall of Europe?s Iron Curtain, but liberal Catholics said his backing for human rights clashed with his opposition to married priests, women clergy, contraception and abortion. ?His pontificate was full of contradictions,? We Are Church, an international network of groups aimed at reforming the Roman Catholic Church, said in a statement.

?John Paul II was an advocate of human rights in secular life, but he did not apply this belief to the church itself,? it said. ?Among the human rights still crying out for recognition in the church are: gender equality ? including women?s ordination, the right of priests to marry ... the right to be respected for one?s sexual orientation, and the moral adulthood of the laity in decisions regarding reproduction and the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV-AIDS,? We Are Church said.

Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff, a leading proponent of controversial liberation theology who was forced out of the priesthood after clashing with the Vatican over politics and religion, also said the Pope?s views were paradoxical. ?I think this Pope had some contradictory dimensions,? Boff told UOL Internet television. ?To the outside, he was open and progressive. But inwardly, he was very rigid, very conservative, and for some doctrines, too strict, for example, his doctrines on sexuality, genetics, homosexuality.?

We are Church began after the then head of the Austrian Church, Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, was accused in 1995 of sexually abusing boys. The Vatican replaced him months later. The Pope responded too slowly to similar scandals elsewhere during his rule, said We are Church, which says it has members in more than 20 countries on all continents. ?The paedophilia scandal exposed a major breach of human rights in the life of the Church generally. Although John Paul II ultimately recognised it as a scandal, this scandal needed much stronger action at a much earlier time,? it said. Church reform groups also criticised the way the Pope centralised decision-making in the Vatican and let its bureaucracy, the Curia, discipline critical theologians.

?Although he was deeply committed to reform and dialogue in the world at large, he strengthened centralised, authoritarian structures within the Church itself. This fostered a climate of fear and rigidity,? We are Church said. The largest US Catholic reform group, Call to Action (CTA), agreed. ?The Catholic church has unquestionably been helped by his strength and deep personal piety, but some of its energy and creativity have also been limited by the authoritative culture of the Vatican during recent decades,? CTA spokeswoman Linda Pieczynski said.

Another US group, FutureChurch, said authoritarian rule may have helped the Polish church survive Communism but it ?has also limited worldwide Catholicism?s ability to creatively meet the challenges of the 21st Century?. Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, seen as a possible successor to John Paul, said the dead Pontiff stood by what he believed was right regardless of public opinion and could not be categorised as either conservative or progressive. ?He was simply too great a man for that,? Schoenborn told Austrian state television.

<B>Francois MURPHY</B>