Latest from Rome and beyond

• MUSLIM LEADERS URGE IMPROVED TIES | 5:00 a.m. ET

Muslim leaders on Wednesday urged the new pope to follow the path of his predecessor by building bridges between the two religions and helping to avoid religious bloodshed.

“I hope the new Pope will follow in the footsteps of his predecessor and try to bring peace in the world,” said Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, a Pakistani Islamic cleric and politician.

But the ecumenical record of conservative German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — now Pope Benedict XVI — suggests to some of his Christian critics that he may be not be as effective at building bridges — a concern echoed in some cautious Muslim comments.

“There is a lot of concern and worry among Muslims over the war that was launched a few years back in the name of curbing terrorism,” said Ahmed, deputy parliamentary leader of Pakistan’s Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal alliance of Islamic parties.

“In order to win sympathy and support of Europeans, this war was portrayed as a Crusade. We hope the Pope will try to annul this impression," he said.

• FIRST MASS FOR BENEDICT XVI | 4:15 a.m. ET

Benedict XVI celebrated his first Mass as pope on Wednesday.

Dressed in resplendent white and gold papal vestments and miter, Benedict looked solemn as he celebrated Mass with the red-hatted cardinals in the Renaissance Sistine Chapel where he was elected.

The pope admitted to having a sense of inadequacy after being elected on Tuesday. by Roman Catholic cardinals but believed his predecessor John Paul II was holding his hand.

“On one hand I have a sense of inadequacy and human turmoil at the responsibility entrusted to me yesterday ... on the other hand, I feel living in me a deep gratitude to God who does not abandon his flock but guides them always,” the pope said at the end of the Mass.

• CONGRATULATIONS FROM CHINA | 12:01 a.m. ET

China on Wednesday congratulated the newly appointed Pope Benedict XVI and said it hoped Beijing’s strained relations with the Roman Catholic Church improve under his leadership.

“We hope under the leadership of the new pope, the Vatican side can create favorable conditions for improving the relationship between China and the Vatican,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement.

China’s officially atheist government broke ties with the Vatican in 1951 and has said it will consider opening relations only if the Vatican cuts links with rival Taiwan, which split with the mainland in 1949 amid civil war.

Qin said relations between the two sides could improve under two conditions.

“The Vatican must cut off its so-called diplomatic relations with Taiwan, acknowledging the People’s Republic of China is the only sole legal government representing the whole of China,” he said.

Secondly, the Vatican “must not intervene in China’s domestic affairs, including not intervening in domestic affairs in the name of religion,” Qin said.

The official body representing China’s Catholics also sent a congratulatory cable to the Vatican and asked its followers to pray for him as a gesture of congratulations, Qin said.

• QUESTIONS ABOUT PROBE | 11:50 p.m. ET

A former trainee priest who has accused the founder of an influential Catholic order of sexual abuse says that new Pope Benedict XVI deliberately shelved a probe into his claims for six years.

Jose Barba is one of eight ex-members of the Rome-based Legion of Christ, most of them Mexicans, who accuse the order’s founder, Marcial Maciel, of sexually abusing them from the 1940s through the 1960s.

The allegations are too old to be investigated under criminal law but nine former members brought a suit against Maciel, 84, under the Vatican’s canonical law in 1998. One has since died.

The case was filed at the Church’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger who was elected Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday.

Barba, spokesman for the accusers, says the claims were hushed up because Maciel and his ultra-conservative order were close to Pope John Paul II.

“The question is: Was Cardinal Ratzinger totally and solely responsible? I think that to a great extent he was because it was his department,” said Barba, now 68 and a professor of Latin American studies at Mexico City’s ITAM university.

Maciel stepped down as leader of the Legion of Christ, citing his age, a month after the Vatican finally announced last December it would take up the abuse allegations.

Barba alleged that the Church’s willingness to probe the issue could have been an attempt by Ratzinger to clean up the matter to improve his chances of becoming pope.

“It would have been very embarrassing for the cardinal to turn up at the conclave with the reputation of someone who had covered up a scandal,” the Mexican said.

Maciel, who lives in Rome, has denied the abuse charges.

“The Legion of Christ struggles to express how deeply we regret that the accusers attempt to tar the Vatican, Cardinal Ratzinger, and even Pope John Paul II with the stain of these false allegations,” it said in a statement that has been on its Web site for three years.

Founded in 1941, the order has around 500 priests and 2,500 seminarians in some 20 countries including Spain and the United States.

A Mexican bishop handed Ratzinger a letter in 2000 outlining allegations of abuse by Maciel against a Spanish priest, said Barba, who accuses the Legion founder of molesting him in Rome in the 1950s.

Barba said that when he handed another letter to a Vatican official in 2002 detailing alleged abuses, he was told that the missive would be forwarded to Ratzinger.

Maciel was warmly praised by John Paul on the 60th anniversary of his ordination last November but the probe against him was announced just days later.

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