RIO DE JANEIRO: Pope Francis has shown the world his rebellious side, urging young Catholics to shake up the church and make a “mess” in their dioceses by going out into the streets to spread the faith. It’s a message he put into practice by visiting one of Rio’s most violent slums and opening the church’s World Youth Day on a rain-soaked Copacabana Beach.

Francis was elected pope on a mandate to reform the church, and in four short months he has started doing just that: He has broken long-held Vatican rules on everything from where he lays his head at night to how saints are made. He has cast off his security detail to get close to his flock, and his first international foray as pope has shown the faithful appreciate the gesture.

He’s going further Friday, meeting with a small group of young convicts. He’ll also hear confessions from some Catholic youth and then head back to Copacabana beach for a Stations of the Cross procession.

Dubbed the “slum pope” for his work with the poor, Francis received a rapturous welcome in the Varginha shantytown on Thursday, part of a slum area of northern Rio so violent it’s known as the Gaza Strip. The 76-year-old Argentine seemed entirely at home, wading into cheering crowds, kissing people young and old and telling them the Catholic Church is on their side.

“No one can remain insensitive to the inequalities that persist in the world!” Francis told a crowd of thousands who braved a cold rain and stood in a muddy soccer field to welcome him. “No amount of peace-building will be able to last, nor will harmony and happiness be attained in a society that ignores, pushes to the margins or excludes a part of itself.”

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis has won over many hearts and minds with his simple style and focus on serving the world’s poorest, but he has devastated traditionalist Catholics who adored his predecessor, Benedict XVI, for restoring much of the traditional pomp to the papacy.

Francis’ decision to disregard church law and wash the feet of two girls — a Serbian Muslim and an Italian Catholic — during a Holy Thursday ritual has become something of the final straw, evidence that Francis has little or no interest in one of the key priorities of Benedict’s papacy: reviving the pre-Vatican II traditions of the Catholic Church.

One of the most-read traditionalist blogs, “Rorate Caeli,” reacted to the foot-washing ceremony by declaring the death of Benedict’s eight-year project to correct what he considered the botched interpretations of the Second Vatican Council’s modernizing reforms.

“The official end of the reform of the reform — by example,” ”Rorate Caeli” lamented in its report on Francis’ Holy Thursday ritual.

A like-minded commentator in Francis’ native Argentina, Marcelo Gonzalez at International Catholic Panorama, reacted to Francis’ election with this phrase: “The Horror.” Gonzalez’s beef? While serving as the archbishop of Buenos Aires, the then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s efforts to revive the old Latin Mass so dear to Benedict and traditionalists were “non-existent.”

Virtually everything he has done since being elected pope, every gesture, every decision, has rankled traditionalists in one way or another.

The night he was chosen pope, March 13, Francis emerged from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica without the ermine-rimmed red velvet cape, or mozzetta, used by popes past for official duties, wearing instead the simple white cassock of the papacy. The cape has since come to symbolize his rejection of the trappings of the papacy and to some degree the pontificate of Benedict XVI, since the German pontiff relished in resurrecting many of the liturgical vestments of his predecessors.

Francis also received the cardinals’ pledges of obedience after his election not from a chair on a pedestal as popes normally do but rather standing, on their same level. For traditionalists who fondly recall the days when popes were carried on a sedan chair, that may have stung. In the days since, he has called for “intensified” dialogue with Islam — a gesture that rubs traditionalists the wrong way because they view such a heavy focus on interfaith dialogue as a sign of religious relativism.

Francis may have rubbed salt into the wounds with his comments at the Good Friday procession at Rome’s Colosseum, which re-enacts Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, praising “the friendship of our Muslim brothers and sisters” during a prayer ceremony that recalled the suffering of Christians in the Middle East.

VATICAN CITY: Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio’s election as pope has broken Europe’s centuries-old grip on the papacy, opening the doors on a new age of simplicity and humility for the Roman Catholic Church, mired in intrigue and scandal.

He is the first South American pontiff, the first non-European pope in 1,300 years and the first to take the name Pope Francis, in honour of St. Francis of Assisi, the 12th century saint who spurned wealth to pursue a life of poverty.

His elevation on the second day of a closed-door conclave of cardinals came as a surprise, with many Vatican watchers expecting a longer deliberation, and none predicting the conservative 76-year-old Bergoglio would get the nod.

He looked as startled as everyone, hesitating a moment on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica before stepping out to greet the huge crowds gathered in the square below to catch a glimpse of the new pontiff.

“I ask a favour of you … pray for me,” he urged the cheering crowds, telling them the 114 other cardinal-electors “went almost to the end of the world” to find a new leader.

He also offered a prayer to his predecessor, Pope Benedict, who resigned unexpectedly last month, after saying he was too frail to tackle the many problems assailing the world’s largest organisation, which has an estimated 1.2 billion members.

“Good night and have a good rest,” Bergoglio said before disappearing back into the opulent surroundings of the Vatican City – a far cry from his simple apartment in Buenos Aires.

Delighted priests, nuns and pilgrims danced around the obelisk in the middle of St. Peter’s Square, chanting: “Long Live the Pope” and “Argentina, Argentina”.

In his native Argentina, jubilant Catholics poured into their local churches to celebrate.

“I hope he changes all the luxury that exists in the Vatican, that he steers the Church in a more humble direction, something closer to the gospel,” said Jorge Andres Lobato, a 73-year-old retired state prosecutor.

CHANGE OF DIRECTION

The 266th pontiff in the Church’s 2,000-year history, Francis is taking the helm at a time of great crisis, with morale among the faithful hit by a widespread child sex abuse scandal and infighting in the Vatican bureaucracy.

His unexpected election answered some fundamental questions about the direction of the Church in the coming years.

After more than a millennium of European leadership, the cardinal-electors looked to Latin America, where 42 percent of the world’s Catholics live. The continent is more focused on poverty and the rise of evangelical churches than questions of materialism and sexual abuse, which dominate in the West.

They also chose a man with long pastoral experience, rather than an academic and Vatican insider like Benedict.

“It seems that this pope will be more aware of what life is all about,” Italian theologian Massimo Faggioli told Reuters.

Bergoglio was born into a family of seven, his father an Italian immigrant railway worker and his mother a housewife. He became a priest at 32, nearly a decade after losing a lung due to respiratory illness and quitting his chemistry studies.

Despite his late start, he was leading the local Jesuit community within four years. 销 Bergoglio has a reputation as someone willing to challenge powerful interests and has had a sometimes difficult relationship with Argentine President Cristina Fernandez and her late husband and predecessor, Nestor Kirchner.

Displaying his conservative orthodoxy, he has spoken out strongly against gay marriage, denouncing it in 2010 as “an attempt to destroy God’s plan,” and is expected to pursue the uncompromising moral teachings of Benedict and John Paul II.

Not everyone liked the look of his profile.

“I think they missed an opportunity to renew themselves. They’ve picked another old guy,” said Daniel Villalpando, a 32-year-old web designer in Mexico City. “Sure, he’s a Latino, but they got the most European of the Latinos.”

Bergoglio is the first Jesuit to become pope. The order was founded in the 16th century to serve the papacy and is best known for its work in education and for the intellectual prowess of its members.

“I did not expect to see him in white tonight. I think it was a surprise, but it shows the courage of the cardinals to decide to cross the ocean and therefore to broaden perspectives,” said Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi.

The Vatican said his inaugural Mass would be held on Tuesday. U.S. President Barack Obama said the election of Francis “speaks to the strength and vitality of a region that is increasingly shaping our world.”

AGE CONCERNS

In preparatory meetings before the conclave, the cardinals seemed divided between those who believed the new pontiff must be a strong manager to get the dysfunctional bureaucracy under control and others who were looking more for a proven pastoral figure to revitalise their faith across the globe.

Bergoglio was a rival candidate at the 2005 conclave to Benedict, but his name had not appeared on lists of possible contenders this time around, with many discounting him because of his age, thinking prelates wanted a younger leader.

The secret conclave began on Tuesday night with a first inconclusive ballot. Three more inconclusive ballots were held on Wednesday before Francis obtained the required two-thirds majority of 77 votes in the fifth and final vote.

Billowing white smoke poured from the Sistine Chapel and the bells of St. Peter’s Basilica rang out to announce the news, drawing Romans and tourists to the Vatican.

“May God forgive you,” Bergoglio said to the cardinals at a subsequent dinner, raising loud laughter, according to New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan.

He is due to make a private visit to a Rome basilica on Thursday and then meet Benedict, who is secluded in the papal summer residence outside Rome. Francis will celebrate a Mass with cardinals in the late afternoon.

While the voting for the pope is billed as secret, with each cardinal guided only by his faith in God, the process is ultimately a closed-door exercise in consensus-building that cements fidelity to the Church’s new leader among the inner circle.

ANCIENT RITUAL

The papal election resembles how decisions were made in Europe some 700 years ago, before elected monarchies were replaced by hereditary monarchies, says Bruce Bueno De Mesquita, professor of politics at New York University who uses a computer model based on game theory to predict the outcome of elections.

Though it is more a product of tradition than design, it has turned into an efficient system for consolidating the power of the pope and the Church’s other elites, he says.

Just as in the corporate world or autocratic governments, the small number of electors who are deciding on the leader of the Catholic Church can expect specific rewards — promotions, assignments and other perks — for their loyalty, Bueno De Mesquita says. The idea is that the smaller the number of electors, the greater the relative advantage of siding with the winner.

SECRET BALLOT?

Cardinals used to sign their names to ballots, but stopped doing so “due to an old history of intrigues and tensions when people used to fear the most serious reprisals for their choices,” says Michael Bruter, who teaches political science at the London School of Economics.

Even so, factions make their views known during informal discussions between votes.

Because the proceedings are secret, researchers know little about what exactly motivates cardinals to switch their votes, but Romain Lachat, a political scientist at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, says the formation of coalitions — where electors slowly rally around a man who may only be their second or third choice — is inevitable.

But Indrajit Ray, professor of economics at Britain’s Birmingham University, says actively campaigning for the job may not be a good idea. A passive candidate who doesn’t alienate too many other cardinals may well find it easier to win a majority. “I think in the end we are going to get someone who is in the middle,” he says. This could also translate into a handicap for ultraconservative or very liberal cardinals.

ODD ONES OUT

Because there are no official candidates, in theory any baptized and unmarried Catholic male — cardinal or not — can get elected. But in practice, they have almost always elected one of their own.

The process can easily go to multiple rounds with the same people theoretically getting the same number of votes each time as cardinals play chicken to see who gets dropped first, Bruter says. But slowly, cardinals who voted for someone who only received a very small number of votes are likely to add their vote to one of the stronger candidates in the next round.

COMING TO AGREEMENT

In the past, competing factions have reportedly tried to negotiate compromise candidates to break deadlocks and prevent undesirable candidates from winning in the end, according to Bruter. Rumor has it that liberal cardinals tried this during the 2005 election but the supporters of Josef Ratzinger, later Benedict XVI, knew they had the votes to block anyone else and chose to stick to their man.

OLYMPIC RIVALRY

According to Bueno de Mesquita the papal election can also be compared to decision-making in large publicly traded companies, with the accompanying level of cronyism and reward-seeking and lesser concern for the general well-being of the broad constituency — be it the shareholders or in this case the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.

“This structure maximizes loyalty of the choosers to whoever is chosen because rewards — opportunities for promotion, desirable venues, and quality of life factors such as housing, etc. — follow loyalty,” he says.

So, choosing purely with the flock — or shareholders — in mind could cost an elector dearly and set back their own projects, whether selfish or selfless.

Non-dynastic autocratic regimes also follow a similar decision-making process, says Bueno de Mesquita, and the vote on which city will host major sports events such as the Olympics have a similar dynamic.

VOTE RIGGING

No voting system is safe from manipulation. The most obvious, and hardest to control, is the agenda-setting before the vote and the informal discussions that take place between ballots.

But the voting process itself is fairly watertight and should prevent anyone from voting twice. And while some might argue that it imposes certain constraints that might be called a “fix,” it could also be described as an attempt to conserve a cherished way of doing things.

VATICAN CITY: The Vatican insists that the cardinals participating in the upcoming conclave will vote their conscience, each influenced only by silent prayers and reflection. Everybody knows, however, that power plays, vested interests and Machiavellian maneuvering are all part of the game, and that the horse-trading is already under way.

Can the fractious Italians rally behind a single candidate? Can the Americans live up to their surprise billing as a power broker? And will all 115 cardinals from around the world be able to reach a meeting of minds on whether the church needs a people-friendly pope or a hard-edged manager able to tame Vatican bureaucrats?

This time there are no star cardinals and no big favorites, making the election wide open and allowing the possibility of a compromise candidate should there be deadlock.

While deliberations have been secret, there appear to be two big camps forming that have been at loggerheads in the run-up to the conclave.

One, dominated by the powerful Vatican bureaucracy called the Curia, is believed to be seeking a pope who will let it continue calling the shots as usual. The speculation is that the Curia is pushing the candidacy of Brazilian Odilo Scherer, who has close ties to the Curia and would be expected to name an Italian insider as Secretary of State — the Vatican No. 2 who runs day-to-day affairs at the Holy See.

Another camp, apparently spearheaded by American cardinals, is said to be pushing for a reform-minded pope with the strength to shake up the Curia, tarnished by infighting and the “Vatileaks” scandal in which retired Pope Benedict XVI’s own butler leaked confidential documents to a journalist. These cardinals reportedly want Milan archbishop Angelo Scola as pope, as he is seen as having the clout to bring the Curia into line.

The other key question to resolve is whether the pope should be a “pastoral” one — somebody with the charisma and communication skills to attract new members to a dwindling flock — or a “managerial” one capable of a church overhaul in a time of sex-abuse scandals and bureaucratic disarray.

It’s hard to find any single candidate who fits the bill on both counts.

Italy has the largest group of cardinal electors with 28, and believes it has a historic right to supply the pope, as it did for centuries. Italians feel it’s time to have one of their own enthroned again after 35 years of “foreigners,” with the Polish John Paul II and the German Benedict.

But Italians are divided by which Italian church groups they have been affiliated with, and which leaders they follow. A dispute that pitted the followers of the archbishops of Genoa and Florence is said to have cost them the papacy in 1978 after 455 years of Italian popes.

Andrea Riccardi, a founder of the Sant Egidio community and minister of cooperation in the Italian government, says Italian cardinals should get the first look.

“The pope is bishop of Rome,” Riccardi said. “Only if the selection of an Italian becomes impractical should it be the case to look in another direction.”

From one point of view, the Italians have already suffered a setback. The selection of Tuesday for the conclave to begin is considered a victory for the “foreigners” who had sought more time to get to know get to know one another amid pressures to begin voting as early as Sunday.

And the leading Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, which polled experts on Saturday, found Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley topped their list of papal favorites — ahead of both Scherer and Scola.

Two other Americans — Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington — also emerged as potential popes in the survey. That was a surprise since Americans had largely been written off because of potential negative perceptions of electing a superpower pope. Vatican watchers have also noted that an American pope would likely have difficulty dealing with anti-Christian violence and persecution in the Islamic world.

But there are 11 American cardinal-electors, second in number only to the Italians, and they are being talked up for their perceived managerial skills.

The American reputation may have been boosted by the Vatican’s decision to silence their daily pre-conclave news conferences. The American eagerness for transparency has been well received among Catholics — and cast in sharp contrast to the secrecy-prone Italians.

There is one more camp, which presumably commands enough votes to influence the election.

It is the “Benedict faction,” the 67 voting cardinals who owe their red hat and presence in the conclave to the most recent pope. They make up more than half of the voters.

Their loyalty to Benedict could damage the ambitions of any cardinal thought to have damaged his papacy and been part of the “divisions” that Benedict lamented in his final addresses.

Who might that be? Their names are presumably listed in a secret report prepared for Benedict about the “Vatileaks” scandal.

Only a few people have seen that report. None of the cardinals who will be voting are among them.

The first pope in six centuries to step down, Benedict flew off in a white Italian air force helicopter for the papal summer villa south of the capital where he took up temporary residence.

Bells rang out from St Peter’s Basilica and churches all over Rome as the helicopter circled Vatican City and flew over the Colosseum and other landmarks to give the pontiff one last view of the city where he is also bishop.

“As you know, today is different to previous ones,” he told an emotional, cheering crowd in the small town of Castel Gandolfo in his last public remarks as pope.

“I will only be the supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church until 8 p.m and then no longer. I will simply be a pilgrim who is starting the last phase of his pilgrimage on this earth.”

He turned and went inside the villa, never to be seen again as pope.

In an emotional farewell to cardinals on Thursday morning in the Vatican’s frescoed Sala Clementina, Benedict appeared to send a strong message to the top echelons of the Church as well as the faithful to remain united behind his successor, whoever he is.

“I will continue to be close to you in prayer, especially in the next few days, so that you are fully accepting of the action of the Holy Spirit in the election of the new pope,” he said. “May the Lord show you what he wants. Among you there is the future pope, to whom I today declare my unconditional reverence and obedience.”

The pledge, made ahead of the closed-doors conclave where cardinals will elect his successor, was significant because for the first time in history, there will be a reigning pope and a former pope living side by side in the Vatican.

Some Church scholars worry that if the next pope undoes some of Benedict’s policies while his predecessor is still alive, Benedict could act as a lightning rod for conservatives and polarize the 1.2 billion-member Church.

Before boarding the helicopter, Pope Benedict said goodbye to monsignors, nuns, Vatican staff and Swiss guards in the San Damaso courtyard of the Holy See’s apostolic palace. Many of his staff had tears in their eyes as the helicopter left.

As the helicopter took off, he sent his last message on Twitter: “Thank you for your love and support. May you always experience the joy that comes from putting Christ at the centre of your lives”.

Benedict will spend the first few months of his retirement in the papal summer residence, Castel Gandolfo, a complex of villas boasting lush gardens, a farm and stunning views over Lake Albano in the volcanic crater below the town.

At 8 p.m. (1900 GMT/2 p.m. ET) the papacy will be officially vacant and two Swiss Guards that ceremonially watch over the summer villa will march away and not return until the new pope takes possession of the hilltop residence.

Benedict will stay until April when renovations are completed on a convent in the Vatican that will be his new home.

PAPAL PROBLEMS

With the election of the next pope taking place in the wake of sexual abuse scandals, leaks of his private papers by his butler, falling membership and demands for a greater role for women, many in the Church believe it would benefit from a fresh face from a non-European country.

A number of cardinals from the developing world, including Ghanaian Peter Turkson and Antonio Tagle of the Philippines are two names often mentioned as leading candidates from the developing world who listen more.

“At the past two conclaves, the cardinals elected the smartest man in the room. Now, it may be time to choose a man who will listen to all the other smart people in the Church,” said Father Tom Resse, a historian and senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.

Benedict, wearing the white papal cassock and red cape he will shed after his resignation becomes official, urged the Church to strive to be “deeply united”.

A lover of classical music, he compared the Church hierarchy to an orchestra with many instruments which should always seek to be harmonious.

“Let us remain united, dear brothers,” said Benedict, who alluded to the scandals and reports of infighting among his closest aides.

“In these past eight years we have lived with faith beautiful moments of radiant light in the path of the Church as well as moments when some clouds darkened the sky,” he said.

The pope said he had “tried to serve Christ and his Church with deep and total love”.

NEW POPE FOR EASTER

Once the chair of St Peter is vacant, cardinals who have assembled from around the world will begin planning the conclave that will elect his successor.

One of the first questions facing these “princes of the Church” is when the 115 cardinal electors should enter the Sistine Chapel for the voting. They will hold a first meeting on Friday but a decision may not come until next week.

The Vatican seems to be aiming for an election by mid-March so the new pope can be installed in office before Palm Sunday on March 24 and lead the Holy Week services that culminate in Easter on the following Sunday.

In the meantime, the cardinals will hold daily consultations at the Vatican at which they discuss issues facing the Church, get to know each other better and size up potential candidates for the 2,000-year-old post of pope.

There are no official candidates, no open campaigning and no clear front runner for the job. Cardinals tipped as favorites by Vatican-watchers include Turkson, Tagle, Brazil’s Odilo Scherer, Canadian Marc Ouellet, Italy’s Angelo Scola and Timothy Dolan of the United States.

Benedict, a bookish man who did not seek the papacy and did not enjoy being in the global spotlight, proved an energetic teacher of Catholic doctrine but a poor manager of the Curia, the Vatican bureaucracy that became mired in scandal.

He leaves his successor a top secret report on rivalries and scandals within the Curia, prompted by leaks of internal files last year that documented the problems hidden behind the Vatican’s thick walls and the Church’s traditional secrecy.

VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI is greeting pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square for the final time before retiring, waving to tens of thousands of people who have gathered to bid him farewell.

Benedict was driven around the square in an open-sided vehicle, surrounded by bodyguards. At one point he stopped to kiss a baby handed up to him by his secretary.

St. Peter’s was overflowing and pilgrims and curiosity-seekers were picking spots along the main boulevard nearby to watch Wednesday’s event on giant TV screens. Some 50,000 tickets were requested for Benedict’s final master class on the Catholic faith, but Italian media estimated the number of people actually attending could be double that.

VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI has given his pontificate’s final Sunday blessing from hisstudio window to the cheers of tens of thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square.

Benedict says even though he’s retiring on Thursday from the papacy, the first pope in 600 years to do so, he’s “not abandoning the church.” Instead he says he’ll serve the church with the same dedication he has till now, but will do so in a way “more suitable to my age and my strength.” Benedict, 85, will spend his last years in prayer, meditation and seclusion in a monastery on Vatican City’s grounds.

He has one more public appearance, at his weekly audience on Wednesday in the square.

VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict stunned the Roman Catholic Church on Monday when he announced he would stand down, the first pope to do so in 700 years, saying he no longer had the mental and physical strength to carry on.

Church officials tried to relay a climate of calm confidence in the running of a 2,000-year-old institution, but the decision could lead to uncertainty in a Church already besieged by scandal for covering up sexual abuse of children by priests.

The soft-spoken German, who always maintained that he never wanted to be pope, was an uncompromising conservative on social and theological issues, fighting what he regarded as the increasing secularization of society.

It remains to be seen whether his successor will continue such battles or do more to bend with the times.

Despite his firm opposition to tolerance of homosexual acts, his eight year reign saw gay marriage accepted in many countries. He has staunchly resisted allowing women to be ordained as priests, and opposed embryonic stem cell research, although he retreated slightly from the position that condoms could never be used to fight AIDS.

He repeatedly apologized for the Church’s failure to root out child abuse by priests, but critics said he did too little and the efforts failed to stop a rapid decline in Church attendance in the West, especially in his native Europe.

In addition to child sexual abuse crises, his papacy saw the Church rocked by Muslim anger after he compared Islam to violence. Jews were upset over rehabilitation of a Holocaust denier. During a scandal over the Church’s business dealings, his butler was accused of leaking his private papers.

In an announcement read to cardinals in Latin, the universal language of the Church, the 85-year-old said: “Well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of St Peter …

“As from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours (1900 GMT) the See of Rome, the See of St. Peter will be vacant and a conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.”

POPE DOESN’T FEAR SCHISM

Benedict is expected to go into isolation for at least a while after his resignation. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said Benedict did not intend to influence the decision of the cardinals in a secret conclave to elect a successor.

A new leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics could be elected as soon as Palm Sunday, on March 24, and be ready to take over by Easter a week later, Lombardi said.

Several popes in the past, including Benedict’s predecessor John Paul, have refrained from stepping down over their health, because of the division that could be caused by having an “ex-pope” and a reigning pope alive at the same time.

Lombardi said the pope did not fear a possible “schism”, with Catholics owing allegiances to a past and present pope in case of differences on Church teachings.

He indicated the complex machinery of the process to elect a new pope would move quickly because the Vatican would not have to wait until after the elaborate funeral services for a pope.

It is not clear if Benedict will have a public life after he resigns. Lombardi said Benedict would first go to the papal summer residence south of Rome and then move into a cloistered convent inside the Vatican walls.

The resignation means that cardinals from around the world will begin arriving in Rome in March and after preliminary meetings, lock themselves in a secret conclave and elect the new pope from among themselves in votes in the Sistine Chapel.

There has been growing pressure on the Church for it to choose a pope from the developing world to better reflect where most Catholics live and where the Church is growing.

“It could be time for a black pope, or a yellow one, or a red one, or a Latin American,” said Guatemala’s Archbishop Oscar Julio Vian Morales.

The cardinals may also want a younger man. John Paul was 58 when he was elected in 1978. Benedict was 20 years older.

“We have had two intellectuals in a row, two academics, perhaps it is time for a diplomat,” said Father Tom Reese, senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. “Rather than electing the smartest man in the room, they should elect the man who will listen to all the other smart people in the Church.”

Liberals have already begun calling for a pope that would be more open to reform.

“The current system remains an ‘old boy’s club’ and does not allow for women’s voices to participate in the decision of the next leader of our Church,” said the Women’s Ordination Conference, a group that wants women to be able to be priests.

“GREAT COURAGE”

The last pope to resign willingly was Celestine V in 1294 after reigning for only five months, his resignation was known as “the great refusal” and was condemned by the poet Dante in the “Divine Comedy”. Gregory XII reluctantly abdicated in 1415 to end a dispute with a rival claimant to the papacy.

Lombardi said Benedict’s stepping aside showed “great courage”. He ruled out any specific illness or depression and said the decision was made in the last few months “without outside pressure”. But the decision was not without controversy.

“This is disconcerting, he is leaving his flock,” said Alessandra Mussolini, a parliamentarian who is granddaughter of Italy’s wartime dictator. “The pope is not any man. He is the vicar of Christ. He should stay on to the end, go ahead and bear his cross to the end. This is a huge sign of world destabilization that will weaken the Church.”

Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, secretary to the late Pope John Paul, said the former pope had stayed on despite failing health for the last decade of his life as he believed “you cannot come down from the cross.”

While the pope had slowed down recently – he started using a cane and a wheeled platform to take him up the long aisle in St Peter’s Square – he had given no hint recently that he was considering such a dramatic decision.

Elected in 2005 to succeed the enormously popular John Paul, Benedict never appeared to feel comfortable in the job.

“MIND AND BODY”

In his announcement, the pope told the cardinals that in order to govern “… both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.”

Before he was elected pope, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was known as “God’s rottweiler” for his stern stand on theological issues. After a few months, he showed a milder side but he never drew the kind of adulation that had marked the 27-year papacy of his predecessor John Paul.

U.S. President Barack Obama extended prayers to Benedict and best wishes to those who would choose his successor.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the pope’s decision must be respected if he feels he is too weak to carry out his duties. British Prime Minister David Cameron said: “He will be missed as a spiritual leader to millions.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the worldwide Anglican communion, said he had learned of the pope’s decision with a heavy heart but complete understanding.

CHEERS AND SCANDAL

Elected to the papacy on April 19, 2005, Benedict ruled over a slower-paced, more cerebral and less impulsive Vatican.

But while conservatives cheered him for trying to reaffirm traditional Catholic identity, his critics accused him of turning back the clock on reforms by nearly half a century and hurting dialogue with Muslims, Jews and other Christians.

After appearing uncomfortable in the limelight at the start, he began feeling at home with his new job and showed that he intended to be pope in his way.

Despite great reverence for his charismatic, globe-trotting predecessor — whom he put on the fast track to sainthood and whom he beatified in 2011 — aides said he was determined not to change his quiet manner to imitate John Paul’s style.

A quiet, professorial type who relaxed by playing the piano, he showed the gentle side of a man who was the Vatican’s chief doctrinal enforcer for nearly a quarter of a century.

The first German pope for some 1,000 years and the second non-Italian in a row, he traveled regularly, making about four foreign trips a year, but never managed to draw the oceanic crowds of his predecessor.

The child abuse scandals hounded most of his papacy. He ordered an official inquiry into abuse in Ireland, which led to the resignation of several bishops.

Scandal from a source much closer to home hit in 2012 when the pontiff’s butler, responsible for dressing him and bringing him meals, was found to be the source of leaked documents alleging corruption in the Vatican’s business dealings.

Benedict confronted his own country’s past when he visited the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. Calling himself “a son of Germany”, he prayed and asked why God was silent when 1.5 million victims, most of them Jews, were killed there.

Ratzinger served in the Hitler Youth during World War Two when membership was compulsory. He was never a member of the Nazi party and his family opposed Adolf Hitler’s regime.