Pope Benedict XVI used his first sermon yesterday to promise "open and sincere" - though limited - dialogue with other religions, in an early attempt to soften his image.
His words gave substance to reports in Rome of a behind-the-scenes deal hastening his election on Tuesday evening.
The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (78) was said to have given private assurances to his more liberal colleagues in the conclave that he would modify his hard line if elected pope.
The assurances were believed to be enough for Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the reformers' candidate, to swing sufficient votes behind his rival for the sake of Church unity and a rapid result. The explanation may indicate why, with an apparently open race, the new Pope was elected on only the fourth ballot on the second day of the conclave.
He will be inaugurated at a Mass in St Peter's Basilica on Sunday at 10am, which will be attended by international heads of State and prime ministers, including the President, Mary McAleese. Yesterday it was being forecast in Rome that over half a million people may crowd into St Peter's Square for the event.
Cardinal Desmond Connell said of the new papacy: "No doubt there will be surprises." At the Irish College in Rome yesterday he added "it would be a terrible pity to rush to conclusions", asking people to "let the Pope have a chance".
Cardinal Murphy O'Connor, Archbishop of Westminster, expects the Pope to be "a man of surprises" who has not only great experience at curial level in the Vatican but also as an archbishop. The Pope was, he said " a very intelligent man who listens" and who was also "very pastoral, very spiritual". The cardinal had "no worries" about the future of ecumenism where Pope Benedict was concerned.
The German, who has previously branded other religions as defective, gave the 114 cardinals who had elected him a 15-minute homily in Latin during the course of a morning Mass in the Sistine Chapel yesterday.
In tone, the Pope's address at the Mass had more in common with his homily at the funeral of Pope John Paul than with the comparatively hardline homily he delivered in St Peter's Basilica on Monday last, prior to the conclave.
As the world's Catholics absorbed the choice of the new Pope, the service, relayed on screens in St Peter's Square, attracted only a few hundred viewers, in contrast to the thousands who flocked to the area the night before and who had waited during the drawn-out death struggle of Pope John Paul II.
On ecumenism, Pope Benedict said in his homily that he felt himself "to be personally implicated in this question" and was disposed to do all in his power to promote the fundamental cause of ecumenism. He was "fully determined to cultivate any initiative that may seem appropriate to promote contact and agreement with representatives from the various Churches and ecclesial communities."
He would work "tirelessly towards the reconstitution of the full and visible unity of all Christ's followers". It was his "ambition" and his "compelling duty", 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," he said.
Later yesterday Pope Benedict made a surprise visit to his Rome apartment near the Vatican where he spent two hours and attracted a crowd of about 1,000 boisterous well-wishers.
