For many the ego of the Pope on twitter will take some time to get use to. On Monday the Vatican in a release revealed that the Pope is now an official member of the twitter community and his personal account is Benedict XVI, @Pontifex. The Pope has now officially joined millions of people from all over the globe that use twitter to share information and keep in touch with each other.
The Pope is however not expected to start answering tweets until the 12th of December so if you are interested in saying something to the pontiff or leaving a comment this can be done by anyone with a twitter account via hashtag #askpontifex or #B16.
The announcement was made in a press conference on Monday morning where both official representatives from the Catholic Church and Twitter met to discuss the matter.
Many of his tweets will be linked to events that happened during his weekly general audience as well as Sunday blessings. He will also tweet reactions to world events which includes political and natural.
According to Greg Burke, senior adviser for all media activities at the Vatican, they are expecting to deliver a message of spirituality. The Pope will however not be walking around with an iPad, Blackberry or any other technological device. The Pope will be responsible for everything that he tweets and mentions. An official from the Vatican revealed that the Pope will actually be the one who composes tweets for his account. The Pope will also be the one to send the very first tweet from his account however other persons will be responsible for sending tweets on his behalf when the need arises. The post will be sent out in the major languages of English, Italian, Polish, German, French, Portuguese, Arabic and many more will be added in the near future.
Back in June 2011 the Pope had the experience of sending his first tweet using the twitter account of the Vatican news site @news_va_en, this was to announce the launch of the new site www.news.va. In his tweet he said, “Dear friends I just launched News.va Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ! With my prayers and blessings, Benedictus XVI.”