cardinal ratzinger distinguished himself very much at the meetings before the conclave in 2005. if anyone knew the inside of the challenges facing the church at that time it was cardinal ratzinger and he was an inspired choice. i don t know about the votes last time. those are stories in the paper and leaks. that is not important. pope benedict was the great gift for the church at this point in history. he paved the way so we can have pope francis. what do you think the most important thing he can do right now to start off his tenure as pope francis i? what is the message he needs to send out in the immediate days ahead? he sent it out tonight from the balcony. he asked people to pray over him. he invited people to pray with
in silence. and then, third, i was also struck by just the very gracious way he engaged the crowd, the smile, the gentle touch. in terms of your first steps, your debut on the public stage so to speak, i think he went three for three in terms of trying to send a signal that this is not going to be business as usual for the catholic church but this is going to be a breath of fresh air. yeah. that was the impression that i got as well. john, chris, hold on for a moment. i want to go back to anderson down with the crowd. anderson, you re speaking to more people getting more reaction to this historic moment. yeah. there are still a lot of people here. i want to introduce some of the noex the crowd. how you all doing? i m from rome! virginia. reporter: and where are you from? mexico. reporter: what does it mean for you to have a pope from south america? it s really great. we ve never had anybody from
and symbolically he now connects the old world and the new world and that s where the catholic church is growing. the question of course will be what kind of pope will he be? he is conservative on a lot of things where catholics want people to be more moderate or more liberal but then he takes the name francis, which again is consistent with the humility of service to others. so a lot of it s open questions, obviously, but he is a great story and also came out of nowhere in a way because he was not being discussed at least in the media who was doing a lot of time talking to people from the college of cardinals before all this happened as being a contender this time around. just today, wolf, we had a retired cardinal say to us, why aren t you mentioning bergoglio? he is a perfect compromise for people. everyone respects him. he needs no introduction. and sure enough, tonight pope francis. it s interesting, because there have been a lot of reports that he was supposedly the main challe
reporter: are you confident he has the strength? some have speculated he is another pope being elected in advanced years, 76, are you concerned at all about that? not at all. he came out on the balcony of st. peter s looking very strong and vibrant and i trust that god chooses the right people at the right time and so god chose wisely for us and directed the cardinals in that way. reporter: monsignor, thank you very much for your time. great to be here. reporter: wolf, again, a lot of buzz around the basilica here and catholic university and we ll be spending the next couple hours seeing about students coming around here, people who attend the church seeing their reaction as well. we d love to get their reaction and look forward to more reports from you, the catholic university of america by the way. later i ll be speaking with the former president of the catholic university. he ll be joining us. the white house has just released a statement from the president of the united
this is about what we are at our best. we re called to be saints. i just said wow. he is going to build on the beautiful teaching of benedict and the outreach of john paul ii and the smile of john paul first and on that magnanimous heart of john 23. there is a big continuity unfolding before us. so what comes before pope francis now? what is due tonight and tomorrow? right now we found out and this is the facts, they re having dinner and a celebratory dinner probably break some of the lenten rules and he announced in his address that he wants to pay a special visit to the blessed mother. the first thing he will do tomorrow morning there will be a private visit to st. mary major church where he will kneel before the blessed mother and pray. tomorrow afternoon at 5:00 he