Hometown erupts in cheers for new Pope

STUDENTS at the seminary where Joseph Ratzinger studied for the priesthood as a teenager in the 1940s erupted in cheers yesterday at the news that their townsman had become the leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

Students at St Michael’s Seminary in Traunstein, Germany, pumped their hands in the air and the school’s director was in tears.

“I’m completely overwhelmed. I can’t fathom what happened,” said the Reverend Thomas Frauenlob.