For Bishop Donald W. Wuerl, it was numerous meetings about church catechism. For Rabbi Walter Jacob, it was an hour-long interview last month in Rome. And for Archabbot Douglas Nowicki, it was Vatican meetings with the Benedictine Order.

No matter the connection or brevity of contact, clergy everywhere were reacting yesterday to the election of the 265th pope of the Catholic Church, Benedict XVI.

They knew him then as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Their experiences go back nearly a decade for some, but all describe the new pope as conservative, scholarly and gentle.

They, and others who have never come close to meeting him, celebrated the news that he was the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

Throughout Western Pennsylvania yesterday, church bells rang upon the announcement of the new pope, marking a special time for the faithful who had filed in for noon Mass.

Margaret Papriska, 81, of West Deer, watches St. Mary of Mercy Church's televised Mass, but had never attended. Yesterday, her daughter, Nancy Cheskey, of Indiana Township, took her to the Mass prior to a doctor's appointment. Both were stunned but gratified that the election of a pope happened so quickly.

"We're so happy," Cheskey said outside the Downtown church. "We'll never forget this day. We were here and the pope was named."

In the Diocese of Pittsburgh offices, Wuerl described the new pontiff as a man of great intellect who speaks in a soft, reflective and ofttimes mesmerizing tone.

"He's an extremely gracious person," said Wuerl, describing how at committee meetings Ratzinger waited after they ended so he could greet each person who attended.

He had a "sense of serenity about him and a deep spirituality," Wuerl said.

Wuerl said the faithful should not expect Benedict XVI to be a carbon copy of John Paul II, but rather a man who takes his own approach to leading the world's 1 billion Catholics.

Wuerl said that the new pope had already made his mark on the church by overseeing the Vatican Office of the Doctrine of the Faith, and he defended the new pope's conservative stances on married priests, women's role in the church and homosexuality.

The bishop said Jesus didn't alter his teaching based on the words of critics and neither can the pope.

"The church receives a revelation," Wuerl said. "At times, it is not popular. At times, it's not easy to live up to it. He can't just walk in and say, 'These are the teachings I'm going to change.' "

While some American Catholics may be nervous about the new pope's conservative positions, that very philosophy makes him popular among Eastern Orthodox church leaders, who in recent years forged a friendly relationship with the Vatican.

"I don't like to use the word conservative," said Metropolitan Nicholas, bishop of the Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of Johnstown, who has met Ratzinger several times, "but he very much follows the Orthodox tradition."

Jacob spent an hour last month discussing theology, philosophy and Christian-Jewish relations with Ratzinger in the latter's Vatican office. Jacob, rabbi emeritus at Rodef Shalom Congregation and president of Geiger College in Berlin, Germany, said the meeting had been suggested by attendees at an academic conference he attended in Rome.

"He's very open," Jacob said of the new pope. "He listens, and, of course has firm opinions on things. He was well informed on contemporary and classical Jewish thought and on current Jewish issues."

Lutheran Bishop Donald McCoid met the new pope twice, in 1997 and in 2003 when he traveled to Rome, Canterbury and Istanbul as part of an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ecumenical delegation visit to the seats of the Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox Christian churches.

Ratzinger spoke with McCoid's delegation as head of the church's Doctrine of the Faith office.

"He was a doctrinally oriented person," said McCoid, who leads the Southwestern Pennsylvania Synod of the ELCA. "But when he met with us there also was a grace that was very evident."

While Nowicki has met with the Benedict XVI several times over the years, the chancellor of St. Vincent College in Latrobe also traveled to Bavaria to visit the home of St. Vincent's founder, Boniface Wimmer.

Wimmer grew up in the same Regensburg Diocese as Ratzinger. St. Benedict is considered the patron saint of Europe, and Nowicki believes Ratzinger's choice of papal name serves as a clue to "his concern about Christianity in Europe and the world."

Greensburg Bishop Emeritus Anthony Bosco said he met with Ratzinger several times during his every-five-years visits to the Vatican, "but I can't tell you he and I are buddies."

"Right now, it's hard to tell what we'll get," the bishop said. "The media thinks they already have the book on Ratzinger -- someone on TV today called him "The pope's hit man." Everyone wants to know what Ratzinger's going to do to the papacy.

"But my question is, what's the papacy going to do to him? A job like that really has an effect on a man. The whole world is watching him -- now he's not just a Vatican man. He's suddenly so much more global. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

"So the jury is out. I say let's give him a shot. Let's let him be pope for a little while before we put a label on him."

Bishop Thomas J. Bickerton of the Western Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church said he hoped the new pope would bring "clarity and vision" to all Christians.

There was a giddy feeling in the air at St. Anthony Chapel in Troy Hill last night, as parishioners gathered for a special mass to welcome the new pope, filling the church to overflowing.

Many people said they felt comfortable with the choice of the German-born cardinal, because he was a close confidant of Pope John Paul II.

A middle-aged man in a Hawaiian shirt and jeans hurried in late with his fist in the air, "I was rooting for him," the man said, grinning.

Many of the congregants had come to celebrate the St. Anthony novena, a weekly prayer held at the 125-year-old church until mid-June. Instead they were greeted in the chapel's entry way by a freshly printed and framed color photo of Pope Benedict XVI in his papal robes, waving with both hands at the crowd in Rome. And before Mass, they lit dozens of candles for the new pope.

The Rev. David Schorr took on a lighthearted tone for the occasion.

"We thank God for John Paul II," he said. "And we now thank God for our new Pope Benedict XVI."