Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio greeted crowds in Rome’s St Peter’s Square after his election as the Catholic Church’s new Pope.

Appearing on a balcony over the square, he asked the faithful to pray for him. Cheers erupted as he gave a blessing.

The first Latin American and the first Jesuit to be pontiff, he will call himself Francis I.

Pope Francis is76 and was born on 17 December 1936 and is the 266th Pope of the Catholic Church. He is the first Pope born in the Americas, and the first Pope from the Southern Hemisphere. From 1998 to 2012, he served as the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, and was promoted to Cardinal in 2001.

The 115 cardinals had been in isolation since Tuesday afternoon, and held four inconclusive votes. At least 77 of them, or two-thirds, would have had to vote for a single candidate for him to be elected Pope.