The German bishops this week elected as President of the German bishops' conference a bishop with strong liberal credentials, who has argued that priestly celibacy should be optional and has a strong record of ecumenical enthusiasm.

Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, 69, of Freiburg succeeds Cardinal Karl Lehmann, who was president for more than 20 years and stepped down for health reasons in mid-January. His election runs counter to the conservative trends and signals that have recently emerged from the Vatican, and is perceived as particularly significant because it is a powerful indicator of the mood among bishops in the homeland of Pope Benedict XVI.

Zollitsch has been Archbishop of Freiburg in south-west Germany - the country's second-largest diocese, with 2.07 million Catholics - since 2003. He was named as one possible successor to Cardinal Lehmann as soon as the cardinal announced that he was resigning, but little was known about him in the country at large and in recent weeks the new Archbishop of Munich, Reinhard Marx, was regarded as the favourite.

Now that details of the new president's views and priorities are emerging, his election has surprised many. It confirms that the majority of Germany's 69 bishops who voted for Archbishop Zollitsch are in favour of continuing Cardinal Lehmann's liberal course, which has sometimes clashed with Rome in recent years. Moreover, thanks to a compulsory church tax, the German Church is the wealthiest Catholic Church in Europe as well as being Pope Benedict's native Church.

Archbishop Zollitsch, a modest and quiet man, sees himself as a bridge-builder who would rather tackle problems head on or discuss them openly than brush them under the carpet. He has a reputation as a wise mediator, a realist and an excellent organiser.

Once it was clear that he had been elected president, Archbishop Zollitsch said he considered it an honour to have the chance to continue Cardinal Lehmann's work. The two are close friends and when Cardinal Lehmann announced that he was stepping down, Archbishop Zollitsch held a long laudatio for him, fulsomely praising his record in office. Cardinal Lehmann is understood to have favoured Archbishop Zollitsch as his successor.

Vocations to the priesthood are one of Archbishop Zollitsch's priorities and he is greatly concerned about the drastic shortage of vocations in Europe. His views as far as priestly celibacy is concerned are liberal. While celibacy can be advantageous for a priest's work, he says, theologically it is not mandatory and he himself would prefer to see it made optional.

Ecumenical relations with the German Lutheran Church are another of Archbishop Zollitsch's foremost concerns. One of the first things he said as president was that he would work closely with the German Lutherans. Whereupon Bishop Wolfgang Huber, the leader of the Lutheran Church in Germany, immediately responded by praising Archbishop Zollitsch as a man with great pastoral and administrative experience who was prepared for serious dialogue and "like myself is in favour of an ecumenism that is demanding".

Archbishop Zollitsch will probably also be prepared to discuss reform of episcopal nomination procedures which some in the Church consider undemocratic.

Robert Zollitsch was born an ethnic German in Filipovo in former Yugoslavia in 1938. His family fled to Germany in 1945. He grew up in Mannheim and was ordained a priest in Freiburg in 1965. He is very keen on mountaineering, and is on record as saying that he loves to clear his head in the mountain air.