Benedict XVI begins work at Vatican

Ice cream and champagne
Benedict asked cardinals to dine together on bean soup, cold cuts, a salad and fruit, Meisner said. The nuns who prepare their meals at the Vatican hotel where the cardinals were sequestered during the conclave didn’t have time to plan a special menu, so there were only two special treats — ice cream and champagne.

In his first words as pope delivered from the loggia overlooking the square, Benedict paid tribute in accented Italian to “the great John Paul II.” He called himself “a simple, humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord.”

It was a sign of John Paul’s charismatic legacy looming over the new pontiff, who is described by people who know him as intellectual, cultured and rather reserved.

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Benedict said Wednesday he felt John Paul’s presence as he wrestled with two conflicting emotions following the election: thanks to God for the gift of being pope but also “a sense of inadequacy” in carrying out the responsibility.

“I seem to feel his strong hand holding mine, I feel I can see his smiling eyes and hear his words, at this moment particularly directed at me: ’Be not afraid.”’

Benedict, who turned 78 on Saturday, is the oldest pope elected since Clement XII in 1730. His age clearly was a factor among cardinals who favored a “transitional” pope who could skillfully lead the church as it absorbs John Paul II’s legacy, rather than a younger cardinal who could wind up with another long pontificate.

Shortest conclaves in 100 years
His election in four ballots over two days concluded one of the shortest conclaves in 100 years.

A conservative on issues such as homosexuality, the ordination of women and lifting the celibacy requirement for priests, Benedict has led the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — a position he used to discipline church dissidents and uphold church policy against attempts at reform by liberals and activist priests.

His background was clearly on the minds of cardinals a day after the election.

“God has taken the most unusual people and placed them in places of authority, power if you will, and used them for his purposes,” said American Cardinal Adam Maida. “So I believe that Cardinal Ratzinger, with all his gifts and talents and even some of his shortcomings, will somehow be able to reach others.”

British Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor suggested Ratzinger might temper some of his positions, at least publicly, because of the office he now holds.

“The pope now has a platform and a place he didn’t have before. Now he has much wider responsibilities, and I think he’s aware of that,” Murphy-O’Connor said, adding that Ratzinger was elected “notwithstanding his age.”

Joy over the selection of a new pope immediately mixed with worries that Benedict could polarize a global church, whose challenges include growing secularism in rich countries and inroads by evangelical groups in regions such as Latin America.

“He could be a wedge rather than a unifier for the church,” said the Rev. Thomas Reese, editor of the Jesuit weekly magazine America.

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