Leaders welcome new Pope

A picture taken yesterday on Telepace shows Pope Benedict XVI (C) during his first day in office celebrating a mass with cardinals who elected him as leader of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics. The pontiff wearing the papal miter on his head, led a solemn procession followed by the 114 cardinals into the Sistine Chapel, where they had chosen him on Tuesday to succeed the late John Paul II. PHOTO: AFP

The conservative German cardinal, chosen by a panel of his peers on Tuesday, was generally seen as the voice of continuity after he served as one of Pope John Paul II's closest aides and the guardian of Church doctrine for nearly a quarter of a century.

"I believe this is going to be a reign of peace for all religions," Lorenzo Gallegos, a Filipino doctor, said after mass at a Manila church. "This has been in the scriptures."

President Bush called Ratzinger "a man of great wisdom and knowledge." UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he would bring a wealth of experience to his papacy.

The election of the first German Pope in 1,000 years "fills us in Germany with special joy and also with a little pride," President Horst Koehler said.

Jewish and Muslim leaders expected Ratzinger, 78, to follow John Paul's lead in trying to heal divisions between faiths.

But there was disappointment among those who had hoped a new Pope might relax the Church's views on issues such as divorce, female priests, homosexuality and contraception.

"Ratzinger is not the Pope that we would ideally like," said Joelle Battestini, associate convener of the Australian group Ordination of Catholic Women.

Matt Foreman of National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in the United States said the German cleric had shown "unrelenting, venomous hatred for gay people."

Others doubted Ratzinger could a heal a Church rive with disillusion and tarnished by sex abuse scandals.

Bernd Goehring, director of German ecumenical group Kirche von Unten, described the election as a catastrophe.

"We can expect no reform from him in the coming years," he said. "Even more people will turn their back on the Church."

Mary Grant of US group Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests said the new Pope "seems to prefer combativeness to compromise and compassion."

While Ratzinger would provide strong leadership, some said, he lacked the popular charisma of John Paul.

But Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, head of the world's 70 million Anglicans, praised him as a theologian of "great stature" and said he looked forward to working with him.

"Cardinal Ratzinger already has shown a profound commitment to advancing Catholic-Jewish relations," said Rabbi David Rosen, the American Jewish Committee's international director of interreligious affairs.

In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, a senior figure in the 40-million-member Islamic group Nadhlatul Ulama voiced hope that Ratzinger's close ties to the late Pope would mean greater harmony for the world's religions.

"He has been dealing with theological issues for quite a long time and he is very familiar with the visions brought by Pope John Paul II," said Masduki Baidlowi.