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End Of Days: The Pope Is Tweeting Now @Pope2YouVatican
By
Garth Johnston
Published Feb 23, 2012
Modified Feb 23, 2012
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By
Garth Johnston
Published Feb 23, 2012
Modified Feb 23, 2012
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Not only does the Pope have an iPad, but for Lent this year he's also got a Twitter account! Sadly though, he appears to be using Twitter for Mac and not PopeDeck when he—or much more likely some underling—tweets from @Pope2YouVatican. Yes, that is really his handle—@Pope2You was already taken. But now, you can get one step closer to God, in 140 characters or less.
For the rest of Lent, Benedict XVI will be using the messaging site to spread the gospel in English, Spanish, Italian, French, German and (soon) Portuguese. The whole thing is partially to show that "many of the key Gospel ideas are readily rendered in just 140 characters," according to Msgr. Paul Tighe, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications (we can't tell you how happy it makes us to know that council exists). "It's an experiment also for us to see how it goes, to see what level of impact it has," Tighe said in an interview with Vatican Radio's Phillippa Hitchen. "It's something dynamic and different."
So what was Ratzinger's first tweet? "Let us be concerned for each other, to stir a response in love and good works” (Heb 10:24) #Lent #Pope2You" Not bad? If the Lent experiment goes well, sources say the leader of the Catholic Church will mostly likely continue tweeting, possibly using the medium "as a channel that could allow for a more direct and immediate way of sharing the nucleus of the Pope’s thoughts on various occasions." Sure!
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Garth Johnston
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