c. 2005 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ Putting formality aside, Pope Benedict XVI gave warm thanks on Friday (April 22) to the cardinals who elected him pope, and vowed to conduct his papacy “with simplicity and willingness.”

As Benedict prepares to be formally installed as the 265th pope on Sunday, Jewish leaders welcomed an invitation to send a delegation to the Mass, as well as the pope’s expressed desire “to continue dialogue and collaboration with the sons and daughters of the Hebrew people.”

Leone Paserman, president of the Rome Jewish Community, called the invitation “a sign of continuity with Pope John Paul II,” who made an historic visit to Rome’s main synagogue in 1986.

Paserman said, however, that the Jewish community could not send a delegation to the Mass on Sunday because it coincided with the Jewish festival of Passover.

The German-born pontiff met with the cardinals at an audience in the Sala Clementina of the Apostolic Palace, the ornate hall where John Paul’s body lay in state for three days following his death on April 2.

Benedict, who as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had been one of the late pope’s closest aides, spoke of the “sad event of his death,” but the mood at Friday’s meeting was more upbeat, less somber.

“Venerated brothers,” the pope said, “to you my most personal thanks for the faith that you have placed in me, electing me bishop of Rome and pastor of the universal church. It is an act of faith that constitutes an encouragement to undertake this new mission with more serenity because I am persuaded of being able to count, along with the indispensable aid of God, also on your generous collaboration.

“I pray you never to let me lack your support,” he said.

As the cardinals came forward one by one to kneel before the new pope, who had been dean of the College of Cardinals, he held out both hands to receive them. Breaking protocol, he rose to his feet when the 93-year-old Cardinal Paul Augustin Mayer, a German Benedictine, approached, and he walked to the side of Polish Cardinal Andrzej Deskur, 81, who is confined to a wheelchair.

“May the Lord grant to him to imitate the work of St. Benedict for the good of the church and the world,” Cardinal Angelo Sodano, whom Benedict reappointed as secretary of state, said in paying homage to the new pope.

In his address, the pope spoke of his “gratitude” that despite his “human frailty” he had been given “the task of leading and guiding the church so that it might (be) a sacrament of unity in the world for the entire human race.”

Recalling his first appearance on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica before a crowd of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims after his election on Tuesday, Benedict said that his “first encounter with the faithful in St. Peter’s Square was truly emotional.”

Dignitaries of church and state began arriving in Rome for the Mass that will mark the start of Benedict’s reign. Between 50 and 60 flights carrying official delegations were expected to land at the Ciampino Military Airport.

“It will be a blessed pontificate,” Armenian Patriarch Nerses Bedros XIX of Cilicia, said on his arrival from Beirut. His words were a play on the pope’s name in Italian, Benedetto, which also means blessed.

Bedros said that Benedict is “a man of deep faith, prayer and theology as well as of great humility and will follow in the wake of Pope John Paul II.”

The new pope’s 81-year-old brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, was scheduled to arrive in Rome on Saturday along with many thousands of fellow Germans.

Rome authorities, who expect an influx of half a million pilgrims, said that they will close the skies to all commercial and private flights within a range of five miles from 8 a.m. (2 a.m. EDT) to 4 p.m. (10 a.m. EDT) on Sunday. The Supreme Command of Allied Forces in Europe will deploy AWACS surveillance planes to patrol the area.

KRE/JL END POLK