Twitter has been used for everything from announcing major news events to revealing what Alec Baldwin had for dinner. Now, the leader of one of the biggest religions will soon be giving us his own Tweets.
The Vatican announced today that Pope Benedict XVI now has his own official Twitter account. While the account is live for people to follow (he"s using the handle @pontifex) the Pope won"t actually be posting any Tweets of his own until December 12. The Vatican said in its press release, "The Pope’s presence on Twitter can be seen as the ‘tip of the iceberg’ that is the Church’s presence in the world of new media."
The official YouTube channel for the Vatican was launched back in 2009, so it"s a little odd that the Vatican has waited this long to launch a Twitter account for Pope Benedict XVI. Even though he hasn"t tweeted yet, his Twitter account already has well over 100,000 followers just a few hours after going live.
Pope Benedict XVI will answer questions from both believers and non-believers via his Tweets, the Vatican said, adding, "It is hoped that the Pope’s short messages, and the fuller messages that they seek to encapsulate, will give rise to questions for people from different countries, languages and cultures."
While the plan is for the Pope to post messages regularly on Wednesdays, he may or may not post messages more frequently than that.
Source: Vatican press release