VATICAN CITY — Joseph Ratzinger, a renowned theologian and hard-line enforcer of Catholic Church doctrine for the last two decades, was chosen Tuesday to succeed his friend and close ally Pope John Paul II. Ratzinger, 78, became Pope Benedict XVI, the 265th leader of the world's largest and most powerful Christian institution.
The swift election of the German-born Ratzinger by the church's College of Cardinals was widely seen as a vote for continuity of John Paul's policies, signaling an endorsement of the church's most conservative teachings.
White smoke indicating the pope's election puffed from a skinny chimney atop the Sistine Chapel at 5:50 p.m., and onlookers started to cheer. Five minutes later, the great bell of St. Peter's began to toll.
Applause and chants of "Viva il papa!" rang out. People from across Rome converged on St. Peter's Square, running through streets and across bridges over the Tiber River to join the swelling crowd.
After Ratzinger's name was read to the assembled multitude, he stepped onto a balcony and described himself as "a simple, humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord."
"The fact that the Lord can work and act even with insufficient means consoles me," said the new pope, dressed in flowing white robes and the scarlet papal cape and golden stole, "and above all I entrust myself to your prayers."
White-haired and slightly hunched, Ratzinger smiled broadly and waved somewhat awkwardly. Where John Paul regularly embraced and played enthusiastically to his audiences, Pope Benedict XVI appeared a bit stiff and kept his remarks short.
The new pope will lead a church in crisis, sharply divided after John Paul's 26-year reign. Despite John Paul's personal magnetism, many of the church's 1 billion members are seriously disaffected, the faith is losing ground in many parts of the world to other religions and is under threat from radical Islam and secularism. Reaction to the election of the oldest pope in two centuries was mixed, both in a St. Peter's Square packed with people eager to hear the news, and around the world.
Liberal Roman Catholics who had hoped for change and more openness toward the role of women in the church, birth control and homosexuality, were disappointed and predicted a status quo -- or worse, a leap backward -- that would drive even more people from the church.
