Benedict XVI begins papacy with message of openness

After extending a hand to other Christians, Jews and “nonbelievers,” Pope Benedict XVI made a meeting with religious leaders his first public appointment today.

Following the midmorning ecumenical gathering at the Vatican, the new Pope was to receive many of the estimated 100,000 Germans who journeyed to Rome to attend yesterday’s ritual-marked ceremony in St Peter’s Square in which the firs German in centuries was officially installed as Pontiff.