Benedict Xvi: the Vatican's Orthodox Insider is New Pope

The world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics were presented with a hardline conservative as their new Pope last night when the German cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican's enforcer of orthodoxy, was elected after one of the briefest conclaves in modern times.

The new Pope, who was 78 last Saturday, is taking the pontifical title of Benedict XVI. He succeeds Pope John Paul II, who died 17 days ago at the age of 84, following one of the longest and most dynamic pontificates in the church's history. The new Pope will celebrate his first Mass in St Peter's as pontiff next Sunday.

Last night, he appeared on the balcony at St Peter's basilica in the Vatican in front of an ecstatic crowd to declare: "The cardinals have elected me, 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 and above all I entrust myself to your prayers."

In reality the new Pope, elected seemingly on the fourth ballot of the conclave, is the ultimate Vatican insider, John Paul II's righthand man, and the man who, for the last 24 years, as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was the defender and promoter of an increasingly unbending orthodoxy.

It will be his job to reinvigorate the faith in the developed world, where many Catholics have slipped away in dismay in recent years, tackle the church's many problems - about which he has been uncompromisingly conservative - and foster its expansion in the developing world. Last night, the election was welcomed by world political leaders and senior members of other faiths.

The German chancellor Gerhard Schröder said Benedict XVl's election was "a great honour for our whole country ... a Pope who knows the world church like no one else."

President Bush called the new Pope "a man of great wisdom and knowledge."

Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, offered the Pope every blessing in the immense responsibilities he was about to assume and praised him as a theologian of great stature.

The response in St Peter's Square was enthusiastic as priests, tourists and the faithful rushed to the Vatican as word spread at about 6pm local time that a Pope had been chosen. The ringing of the basilica's bells was confirmed sometime later by the time-honoured announcement: "Habemus Papem". The maroon curtains behind the balcony were drawn back a few moments later to reveal the new pontiff, already in his robes of office.

He is the first German to be elected Pope since the Middle Ages and it is the first time cardinals have elected two successive non-Italians since the 14th century.

Benedict XVI, 20 years older than his predecessor when he was elected in 1978, becomes the 265th Pope, traced in a line of succession since St Peter.

Fluent in several languages, he was formerly Archbishop of Munich before being chosen by John Paul II for service in the Vatican in 1981. He served briefly and unwillingly as a 14-year-old member of the Hitler Youth in his native Bavaria and then in the German army as a teenager in an anti-aircraft battery towards the end of the second world war. He deserted in 1944 having never fired a shot.

Observers assumed that the Pope's candidacy had been championed by the cardinals who have served with him in the Vatican and had won over the leaders of the church in the developing world.

His age means he will inevitably be a less dynamic figure than his predecessor and will not have such a long papacy. His elder brother Georg, 81, was quick to point out the possible problem of his age. "At age 78 it's not good to take on such a job which challenges the entire person and the physical and mental existence," he said. "At an age when you approach 80 it's no longer guaranteed that one is able to work and get up the next day."

Liberal church leaders fear the new Pope's unbending orthodoxy will discourage their wavering congregations in pluralist, secular societies. The Africans will believe his firm statement of faith will reassure and bolster their belief in the face of the challenge they face from militant Islam in many areas.

Cardinal Ratzinger had presented an unequivocal manifesto to the cardinals in preaching a sermon to them at Mass before the conclave began on Monday, warning against the moral relativism of modern secular life and urging them to withstand the "tides of trends and latest novelties ... from Marxism to freemarket liberalism to even libertarianism, from collectivism to radical individualism, from atheism to a vague religious mysticism ... and so forth."