NEW YORK, NY April 20, 2005 —Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the newly elected pope, is well known to those who follow the in’s and out’s of Vatican policy. But for many others, he’s a blank slate. WNYC’s Fred Mogul spoke with local Catholics who are both hopeful and fearful about the forthcoming Papacy of Benedict the 16th.

REPORTER: As John Flores walks his dog in front of St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Church on 116th Street, he instinctively crosses himself. He says the cardinals who chose the pope are, as he puts it, "warm-hearted." So he figures the new pope must be, also. Flores says he mainly wants a church leader who will speak out for the poor.

FLORES: The majority of Catholics are poor people, and they’re looking for someone to lead them, somebody to help them prosper.

REPORTER: Several people in Spanish Harlem repeated this theme. Others want the new pope to force the American church to take a harder line on renegade priests who molest young people, and turn them over to law enforcement – a position Ratzinger is unlikely to take. Alfredo Correa echoes a popular sentiment here that nationality doesn’t count for much, but it would have been nice if the white smoke had flown for a Latino pope – for one of those cardinals from Honduras, Columbia, Mexico…or, he jokes, his native Puerto Rico.

CORREA: I expected one from Puerto Rico, but it’s no such thing. But as long as we follow the same way then we’ll be all right.

REPORTER: Many people share that opinion: that as long as this pope continues what the last one did, everything will be okay. Members of the organized gay community who are Catholic feel just the opposite. They are distressed at the elevation of Ratzinger. They say they’re praying that he will find a way to encourage more tolerance, but they’re not hopeful. Jeff Stone is a member of the group Dignity.

STONE: We certainly were realistic that we weren’t expecting anyone to come in and announce the church was all wrong about homosexuality. But what we were hoping for was someone who might be open to more dialogue and listening.

REPORTER: But for Barbara Zelenko of Brooklyn, being a Catholic sometimes means submitting to positions you don’t agree with.

ZELENKO: Here we have someone we don’t even know, and he might tell us to do something we don’t like, but that’s where faith comes in. And I do trust and believe that God is with the Catholic church and he will bring her to the right things, and he will bring this new pope to the right things, too.

REPORTER: But regardless of whether they’re upbeat or pessimistic about the new pope, most local Catholics seem to have at least one thing in common: they all say they will be praying for him.