Pope Benedict 'prayed to be passed over'

Pope Benedict XVI is showing he has humour and knows how to work a crowd, traits the public rarely saw during his quarter-century as the stern German guardian of the church’s conservative doctrine.

In the first glimpse of what went on inside his mind during last week’s conclave, Benedict said yesterday that he prayed to be passed over as pontiff because there were younger candidates and that when his election became clear, it felt like “the guillotine”.