PARIS, April 19 (AFP) - Of the many problems facing Pope Benedict XVI as leader of the world's more than one billion Catholics, perhaps the biggest and most intractable headache is that of bioethics.
The new pontiff faces a clamour from within and without the church for an easing of iron-clad papal bans on fertility control, the use of condoms against HIV and restrictions on stemcell research.
But he has a reputation as a strict defender of conservative Roman Catholic doctrine.
Analysts say the Vatican's line on these questions -- entrenched and widened by John Paul II during his 26-year papacy -- has not only triggered the ire of bioscientists, doctors who work in reproductive health and grassroots workers who fight against AIDS.
They say it has also turned many Catholics into cherry-pickers, taking from their religion the bits they like and can follow -- and ignoring the bits they find unpalatable or unfeasible.
"There is a hypocrisy gap that is significant within the church," commented Arthur Caplan, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics.
"There's a lot of undercutting, nods and winks, coming from the leadership about church teachings on bioethics, and followers who are saying, "In conscience, I can't do what the teaching says'."
Within the AIDS and bioscience communities, reaction to John Paul II's unyielding stance on bioethics was often resigned, bitter, sometimes despairing.
The man who now seems fast-tracked for sainthood is accused by his fiercest critics of encouraging the birth of unwanted babies, of hampering research into cures for disease, of fomenting the spread of AIDS by banning condoms and stigmatising homosexuality as a sin.
A storm broke out in October 2003 when one of the pope's key lieutenants, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, published a paper contending that the AIDS virus could slip through "holes" in latex condoms.
There could be "millions of leaking condoms," said Trujillo, who claimed that condom users were playing "Russian roulette."
Scientist protested that these assertions violated every scrap of evidence, but Trujillo never withdrew his paper, nor was it ever officially disavowed by the Vatican.
The situation is not entirely black and white, though.
Many Catholics approve of the church's ban on abortion and the use of embryonic cells in stemcell research.
As the recent case of Terri Schiavo shows, the church's policy on end-of-life medical treatment is praised by some as moral and clear.
And scientists and doctors, like the vast majority of people, share the Vatican's abhorrence of the cloning of a human for reproductive purposes.
To those who say its positions on bioethics is hampering research, the church replies that it is simply acting as a guardian of decency and seeking to add a moral dimension to scientific discovery.
"It's not a matter of questioning scientific research but mastering its use," the Conference of (Catholic) Bishops in France says.
As for the prospects of doctrinal change, the best hope for reformers seems to lie with condoms on preventing HIV. A first cautious step has been made African churches, which have said that condoms can be allowed -- within marriage -- if one of the two partners is infected, in order to prevent the infection of the partner.
Franca Tranza, spokeswoman for the British Medical Association (BMA), which gathers 120,000 British doctors, said "there are a lot of issues where we are opposed to their viewpoint, and we would hope that the new pope takes a more liberal view.
"We would be surprised if they took a more liberal view on abortion, but we would hope that they do on condoms," she said. "To discourage people about using condoms, in countries where the rates of HIV are soaring, is in our view irresponsible."
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