RECORD crowds packed St Peter’s Square yesterday to hail Pope Benedict XVI on his 79th birthday and hear an Easter message that many said marked the real beginning of his pontificate.

More than 100,000 pilgrims, many from the Pope’s native Germany, poured into the square on a breezy but warm day and spilled down Via della Conciliazione, the boulevard leading to the Vatican from the Tiber.

The Pope called for serious and honest negotiations to resolve the nuclear standoff with Iran, peace between Israel and the Palestinians and in Iraq and an end to the week-long impasse over the election result in Italy.

“He is not John Paul II, but he is the Pope,” one Italian on the flower-filled square said. “He has found his own voice.”

The Easter Mass — Pope Benedict’s first as pontiff — came just three days before the first anniversary on Wednesday of his election as the successor of John Paul II.

Even Vatican officials had attributed the crowds for the Pope’s weekly audiences and Sunday prayers to the continuing “John Paul II effect”. Only two weeks ago tens of thousands flocked to Rome to mark the first anniversary of John Paul’s death.

Yesterday, however, the state broadcaster, RAI, featured a eulogistic account of Pope Benedict’s career from boyhood in Nazi Germany to the throne of St Peter’s and said that he had emerged from John Paul’s shadow.

Prayers during the Easter Mass referred to the Pope’s birthday and the anniversary of his election and pilgrims held up banners reading “Happy Birthday Holy Father”.

In his first year, the Pope has belied his earlier reputation as a doctrinally hardline Panzerkardinal. Websites have sprung up offering mugs, baseball caps and car bumper stickers to devotees of the Pope.

Dressed in gold vestments, the Pope was greeted by chants of “Benedetto, Benedetto” as he appeared on the central balcony of St Peter’s, where he first appeared as pontiff a year ago. “We celebrate in joy and in the newness of life Christ, our Easter,” he said.

In his Urbi et Orbi (to the city and the world) address, he said that “even in this modern age, marked by anxiety and uncertainty, we relive the event of the Resurrection, which changed the history of humanity”.

He added: “All those oppressed by chains of suffering and death look for hope from the Risen Christ, sometimes even without knowing it.”

He called on God to bring relief and security to the victims of conflict in Africa, from Darfur in Sudan and the Great Lakes region to the Horn of Africa and Zimbabwe.

In a reference to alarm over Iran’s nuclear programme and its threats to annihilate Israel, the Pope called for “an honourable solution for all parties to the international crises linked to nuclear power” and “peaceful coexistence among different races, cultures and religions to remove the threat of terrorism”.

He said that world leaders must reaffirm Israel’s just right to exist in peace while also helping the Palestinians “to overcome the precarious conditions in which they live and build their future, moving towards a state that is truly their own”.

He added: “I also pray sincerely that those caught up in the conflict in the Holy Land may find peace, and I invite all to patient and persevering dialogue, so as to remove both ancient and new obstacles.”

On Iraq, he prayed for “an end to the tragic violence which continues mercilessly to claim victims”.

He offered Easter greetings in 62 languages, including Latin and Esperanto as well as Hebrew and Arabic.

Speaking in Italian, he said that Italy was passing through a difficult moment and called for harmony and goodwill to resolve the situation for the good of all. The Pope later celebrated his birthday with a lunch at Castelgandolfo, his summer residence.

He appeared weary but in good form after Saturday’s Easter vigil and the torchlit Via Crucis or Stations of the Cross procession at the Colosseum on Good Friday, which a year ago the dying John Paul II was unable to attend.

At the Colosseum, Pope Benedict denounced the Satanic evil that he said led to the abuse and death of children, undermined the family and aggravated the gap between rich and poor.

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