Leaders welcome Pope, liberals dismayed

John O’Callaghan, Manila

The conservative German cardinal, chosen by his peers on Tuesday, was generally seen as the voice of continuity after he served as one of Pope John Paul II’s closest aides and the guardian of Church doctrine for nearly a quarter of a century.

“I believe this is going to be a reign of peace for all religions,” Lorenzo Gallegos, a Filipino doctor, said after Mass at a Manila church. “This has been in the scriptures.”