Others, however, expressed frustration that a cardinal from Africa, Latin America or Asia wasn't chosen at a time when the church is growing fastest in the developing world.
Clement Odigwe, 55, of Oxon Hill, a native of Nigeria,said he had been glued to the television ever since Pope John Paul II died, praying for the election of Cardinal Frances Arinze, a Nigerian.
Now, he said, his prayer is for Pope Benedict to have a heart for Africa.
In Arlington, Susan Hoefling, 45, said she thought Arinze was better suited to tackle issues in developing countries, including poverty and the defection of some Catholics to other faiths. Hoefling, who was raised in Nigeria, said a recent trip to Zimbabwe had convinced her that the new pope must assist in the fight against AIDS.
"We need to look at the issues in Africa rather than avoid them and just focus on Europe and the Middle East," Hoefling said.
She said she hoped Pope Benedict also would consider bringing women into the priesthood to help stem a shortage of priests and nuns. But she said she worried he would not go far enough.
In Miami, where some Catholic churches offer as many masses in Spanish and Portuguese as English, continuity seemed to trump nationality. Hopes for a Latin American pope were subsumed by a sense of relief that Ratzinger is likely to follow John Paul's conservative model.
"We were praying that it not be someone who is too liberal," said Lidia Rio Cardenas after the noon mass at Gezu Catholic Church in downtown Miami.
And outside Sacred Heart Church in the District's Mount Pleasant neighborhood, Colombian immigrant Emerita Lopez was happy with the choice. "People say he's very good . . . My friend told me he was always with the pope and has the same ideas as the pope," said Lopez, 76, a teacher's aide at Sacred Heart School.
Manuel Ramos, 48, a painter from El Salvador who worships at Sacred Heart, said that it would have been nice to have a Latin American pope but that "the Latin Americans were too young. He had to be old, over 70."
Several Jewish leaders welcomed the election of Ratzinger, who has revealed in a memoir that he served against his will in Adolf Hitler's Nazi youth movement and later was drafted into a Nazi antiaircraft unit that protected a BMW plant.
"In Judaism, accepting repentance is a high value," said David L. Bernstein, Washington area director of the American Jewish Committee. "And this pope has been in a historic process of reconciliation, and we must accept his ultimate intention to become a friend of the Jewish people."
At the Church of the Resurrection outside Ellicott City, the Rev. Ty Hullinger, associate pastor, said he expects to hear criticism of the new pope from some in his parish. "What I tell people is to be patient, give him a chance," said Hullinger, who as a Baltimore seminary student met Ratzinger on a trip to Rome in 2002. "I know the man I met. He seemed to be a very humble, very gentle, a very compassionate man."
Hullinger said Pope Benedict will have to meet expectations established by his predecessor.
"I think we're looking for a pope who would be open to the world in the way John Paul II was, the openness to different faiths," he said. "I don't see him in any way turning back from that course."
Contributing to this report were staff writers Bill Broadway, Karin Brulliard, Susan DeFord, Petula Dvorak, Hamil R. Harris, Susan Kinzie, Mary Otto and Mary Beth Sheridan in Washington; staff writer Manuel Roig-Franzia in Miami; and special correspondents Michelle Garcia in New York, Kari Lydersen in Chicago and Caroline Keating in Austin.
Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church elected Germany's Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as the new pope.