Ankara, Turkey - Many Turks fear forces that want to block their nation's entry to the European Union may find a powerful new champion: Pope Benedict XVI.
"Anti-Turkish pope," said the headline of the Cumhuriyet newspaper on Wednesday, the day after Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's selection as pontiff.
"He was Turkey's last choice," said the newspaper Radikal.
The consternation stems largely from comments Benedict made in his previous role as the Vatican's doctrine chief on the nature of multiculturalism and specifically about Turkey's European aspirations. "Multiculturalism," he said, amounts to "fleeing from what is one's own."
And in an interview last year with the French magazine Le Figaro, he suggested that Turkey's bid to join the Europe Union conflicted with Europe's Christian roots. "Turkey has always represented a different continent, in permanent contrast to Europe," he was quoted as saying.
For many people in Turkey, which has staked its future on being part of a religiously diverse Europe, Ratzinger's selection seemed like a dire setback.
Many Turks expressed deep concern that Benedict XVI could roll back work at bridging centuries of tensions between Islam and the West, which at times saw Muslim Turkish armies battling the Christian soldiers of Europe.
"It would undoubtedly be bad news for Turkey for Cardinal Ratzinger to continue his views as Pope Benedict XVI," wrote columnist Selcuk Gultasli in the Zaman newspaper. "At a time when opposition to Turkey's EU membership in France, Austria, Denmark and even the Netherlands is on the rise mixed with racism, it would be a wrong message."
Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose party has its roots in political Islam, said that as pope, Benedict would likely temper his views.
"They were his own personal opinions. His statements from now on will be different," Erdogan said before leaving to visit Turkish peacekeepers in Afghanistan. "Authority requires responsibility. ... It is statements that will come from now on that are important."
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul also dismissed concerns that the pope would be anti-Turkish.
"I think that it is wrong to assess the pope in this way," he said.
"Sometimes statements that people give can be reflected in ways that exceed their intentions," he said, adding that he along with Erdogan and President Ahmet Necdet Sezer had congratulated the pope.
Others said that if Benedict presses a strongly conservative agenda he could end up alienating his flock.
"It's a matter of interest for all Europeans, not only for Turks ... that he should mellow his viewpoints, not only on religion but on way of life," said Seyfi Tashan, director of the private Foreign Policy Institute of Ankara.
"I don't believe that religion will be able to change the modern aspirations of people, which are secular aspirations," Tashan added. "If he goes against it too much, you remember why Protestantism came about in Europe, why there were so many fights? It was against the Catholic hardline Christians."