Benedict Promises a Papacy Marked by Openness, Dialogue

In his first extensive remarks as pope, Benedict XVI sought to calm fears Wednesday that his papacy would further divide the Roman Catholic Church and instead promised “open and sincere” dialogue.

Benedict, who as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger asserted the primacy of Catholicism and branded other religions “deficient,” said he hoped to promote the cause of ecumenism and reach out to other faiths.

The speech, delivered in Latin at the conclusion of a morning Mass in the Sistine Chapel the day after his election, detailed the new pope’s plan and goals. It was intended to cast Benedict, 78, as a leader who would follow the same path as his predecessor, the late John Paul II. It was also meant to address the unease in some quarters over the ultraconservative Ratzinger’s election.

Saying he assumed his new role with trepidation, a sense of inadequacy and “human turmoil,” the German-born pontiff pledged as his “primary commitment” to work “tirelessly toward the reconstitution of the full and visible unity of all Christ’s followers.”

Beyond Christianity, Benedict said he would pursue “the promising dialogue that my predecessors began with various civilizations,” a reference to Jews and Muslims. The statement was seen as a response to critics who have noted that Ratzinger was less than enthusiastic about some of John Paul’s efforts to build bridges to Judaism and Islam.

“It is mutual understanding that gives rise to conditions for a better future for everyone,” Benedict said.

“Expressions of good feelings are not enough,” he said. “Concrete gestures are required to penetrate souls and move consciences, encouraging everyone to that interior conversion which is the basis for all progress on the road of ecumenism.”

Benedict spoke a day after he was elected pope on the fourth ballot during the second day of voting.

The second-most-influential man at the Vatican before John Paul’s death, Ratzinger was able to use the trappings of power to dominate the pope’s funeral and meetings leading up to the conclave, a secret, closed-door session inside the Sistine Chapel.

“It was easy to reach consensus,” Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos of Colombia said in an interview. “He was so outstanding as a candidate, and also he was so well-known by the cardinals. And also because the cardinals knew he was so close to John Paul and had accompanied him in all his work.”

The clear theme of Benedict’s first day as pope was to sound a conciliatory note in the face of critics and a divided church.

Wearing the snow-white cassock and skullcap reserved for the pope, which matched his wavy hair, Benedict left the Vatican for the first time as pontiff and spent a couple of hours at his nearby apartment in Rome where he had lived as a cardinal.

“I’m truly very moved,” he told a Reuters reporter who spotted him. A crowd of about 1,000 well-wishers flocked around him.

In St. Peter’s Square, vendors were selling photographs of the new pope, a somewhat solemn image of him in his new robes, sitting with his hands crossed. They cost 2 euros ($2.60) and were going fast, as was a special edition of L’Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican daily.

Later, back at the Vatican, Benedict walked through the marble halls of the Apostolic Palace and to the papal apartment, where he will reside. It was sealed closed with red ribbon after John Paul’s death and was reopened Wednesday for its new occupant.

Vatican television showed him touring the apartment, then sitting at an immaculate desk and signing a document.

Benedict’s supporters also used Wednesday to defend his ministry and said that those who thought the former Cardinal Ratzinger intolerant were mistaken.

The archbishop of Washington, D.C., Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, said the new pope was a man of dialogue who always sought several opinions when pondering a problem.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the archbishop of Westminster, said Benedict would have his eyes “on the whole company of the church.”

“Once a man is elected, he becomes preacher for the whole church,” the British prelate said. “I think Pope Benedict will be a man of surprises.”

At 78, Benedict will not reprise the energy of the early years of John Paul’s papacy.

“I think personality-wise [the new pope] is a more serious person,” McCarrick said. “Maybe more shy. He is a person who has given his life to scholarship in a very special way....

“I think maybe it’s about ethnic differences. If you’re a Pole who grew up with Nazism and communism you’ve had one experience, and if you’re a German who grew up 10 years later with the turmoil of all that ... it’s another experience.”

In his speech at the Mass, Benedict announced he would travel to Germany in August for World Youth Day, an event favored by John Paul that routinely drew enormous crowds.

As a cardinal, Ratzinger promised to defend traditional Catholicism against modern trends that he believed diluted the faith. On Wednesday, Benedict exhorted his listeners to announce Christ to the world.

“The church today must revive within herself an awareness of the task to present the world again with the voice of the one who said, ‘I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.’ ”

But, he added: “With this awareness, I address myself to everyone, even to those who follow other religions or who are simply seeking an answer to the fundamental questions of life and have not yet found it. I address everyone with simplicity and affection, to assure them that the church wants to continue to build an open and sincere dialogue with them, in a search for the true good of mankind and of society.”

The new pope also used his message -- what one cardinal called a state of the union address -- to pay homage to his predecessor, a man he referred to as “this great pope.”

“I consider this a grace obtained for me by my venerated predecessor,” he said. “It seems I can feel his strong hand squeezing mine; I seem to see his smiling eyes and listen to his words, addressed to me especially at this moment: ‘Do not be afraid.’ ”

Finally, Benedict put his own spin on his widely reported front-runner status going into the conclave, saying that he had been elected pope, “surprising every expectation I had.”