»Joseph Ratzinger will be Pope Benedict XVI«

VATICAN CITY (CNN) -- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany has been selected by the Roman Catholic church as the new pope.

Cardinal Jorge Arturo Medina Estevez of Chile made the announcement to a cheering crowd in St. Peter's Square.

Ratzinger, who took the name Benedict XVI, appeared on the balcony of the Vatican Basilica to greet the people and deliver his first papal blessing.

"Dear brothers and sisters, after the great Pope John Paul II, the cardinals have elected me -- a simple, humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord," The Associated Press quoted him as saying.

Once the archbishop of Munich, Germany, and for many years prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, Ratzinger, 78, was one of the most powerful men in the Vatican and is widely acknowledged as a leading theologian.

Ratzinger served for 20 years as John Paul II's chief theological adviser.

As a young priest he was on the progressive side of theological debates but shifted to the right after the student revolutions of 1968.

In the Vatican, he has been the driving force behind crackdowns on liberation theology, religious pluralism, challenges to traditional moral teachings on issues such as homosexuality, and dissent on such issues as women's ordination.

The dean of the College of Cardinals since November 2002, he was elevated to cardinal by Pope Paul VI in June 1977.

White smoke, bells
Earlier, white smoke rose from a Sistine Chapel chimney and bells rang Tuesday, signaling the selection of a new pope.

The crowd clapped and waved flags as the smoke began to billow over Vatican City about 5:50 p.m. (11:50 a.m. ET).

Suspense built as the throng waited for the symbolic ringing of bells, at which point the crowd broke into a roar of jubilation.

The conclave of 115 cardinals had voted three times previously -- once Monday night and twice Tuesday morning -- before selecting the new pope.

The cardinals' morning ballots were burned at about 11:50 a.m. (5:50 a.m. EDT).

Chemicals are added to the ballots to turn the smoke white or black.

Pope John Paul II, who died April 2 at age 84, had decreed that white smoke be accompanied by the ringing of bells, to avoid a repeat of the confusion after his election in 1978.

Ratzinger needed two-thirds of the votes to be selected.

Speculation rife
There has been a great deal of speculation about who may be chosen to succeed John Paul II, who died April 2 at the age of 84, but cardinals have been mum.

Some taking part in the conclave said they are looking for a leader who presents a hopeful vision, who can "generate some dynamism and some optimism within Catholicism," CNN Vatican analyst John Allen said.

The first clues to the process of finding a successor were sought during the homily or sermon delivered by Ratzinger at Monday's public Mass.

"Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism," Ratzinger said.

Allen said Ratzinger delivered a "very blunt" message for the church to "stay true to itself."

John Paul was widely credited with extending the reach of the papacy. He spoke more than a dozen languages and set an unprecedented pattern of pastoral travel, drawing huge crowds all over the world.

He was also strictly traditional on issues of sexuality and the role of women in the church, which won him support among some Catholics but alienated others. Similar disagreement exists over the next pontiff's stances on issues such as birth control, stem cell research and the ordination of female priests.

[A pope] can choose a Latinised form of his Christian name, a saint's name or the name of an earlier Pope.

He may also want to pick a name that would attribute a virtue to him, such as Pius (pious), Innocent or Clement (merciful).

Some allow personal considerations to guide them, such as Pope John XXII, who chose his name to honour the memory of his father.

However, Peter is a name seen as out of bounds out of respect to the first ever Pope, Saint Peter, who was a disciple of Jesus.

The British have long joked that John Paul II should be succeeded by George Ringo I as the ultimate tribute to the Beatles. Sadly, there's fat chance of this highly original idea coming to fruition. In the history of the papacy, only one pope has taken office with a name shared by no pope before him: Pope Lando, who had a very brief stint at the helm of the Catholic Church from 913-914. Generally, popes are conservative in choosing their names - and the names they adopt from previous papacies often reflect the traditions the new pope will adopt. Karol Wojtyla, or John Paul II, used his name as an homage to John Paul I, the "laughing pope," who only served 33 days in office. Odds suggest the new pope will have one of these common papal names: John (which has appeared 23 times), Gregory (16), Benedict (15), Clement (14), Leo (13), Innocent (13), Pius (12), Boniface (9), Alexander (8) and Paul (6).

The son of a rural Bavarian police officer, Ratzinger was six when Hitler came to power in 1933. His father, also called Joseph, was an anti-Nazi whose attempts to rein in Hitler’s Brown Shirts forced the family to move home several times.

In 1937 Ratzinger’s father retired and the family moved to Traunstein, a staunchly Catholic town in Bavaria close to the Führer’s mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden. He joined the Hitler Youth aged 14, shortly after membership was made compulsory in 1941.

He quickly won a dispensation on account of his training at a seminary. “Ratzinger was only briefly a member of the Hitler Youth and not an enthusiastic one,” concluded John Allen, his biographer.