Ratzinger said he would take the name Benedict XVI. It is assumed that he received two-thirds of the votes of 115 cardinals attending the conclave, the majority necessary to succeed John Paul II.
Ratzinger was born in Marktl, Bavaria on 16 April 1927. He studied philosophy and theology, becoming a cardinal in 1977. He is one of the two of the 115 cardinals not to be appointed by John Paul II, but by pope Paul VI.
After teaching theology, Ratzinger became the archbishop of Munich and Freising and in 1981 took over the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, succeeding Croatian cardinal Franjo Sefer.
In speeches prepared for the Way of the Cross to the Coloseum this year, Ratzinger strongly criticised the situation in the Church. On Monday, during a homily for a mass held on the occasion of the election of the new pope, he said the Church must stick to its fundamental doctrine which he added did not mean conservatism but the choice of Christ as the model to follow.
Ratzinger is the author and cosignatory of the Dominus Iesus Declaration, issued in 2000, in which the Catholic Church reiterated its view that Christianity is the only religion and the Catholic Church the only Church preserving it. The document, which branded other Christian churches as deficient, shocked Anglicans, Lutherans and other
Protestants in ecumenical dialogue with Rome for years.
Ratzinger was the oldest cardinal to be named pope since Clement XII, who was also 78 when he became pope in 1730. He is the first German pope since Victor II (1055-1057).