Pope Benedict XVI to embrace Twitter for Lent
Pope Benedict XVI fell victim to the Twitter death hoax in January 2012. The rather official looking announcement came from an account linked to Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. It was later revealed to be a fake Vatican account.
Pope Benedict XVI may be the hippest, coolest, trendiest Pope ever. Pope Benedict has officially joined Twitter.
During the next 40 days of Lent, Pope Benedict will be sending out one papal message every day in 140 characters or less.
Msgr. Paul Tighe, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, told Vatican Radio's Phillippa Hitchen, "It's an experiment also for us to see how it goes, to see what level of impact it has. It's something dynamic and different."
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The messages will appear in English, Portugese, Spanish, Italian, French and German, all under the Twitter handle, @Pope2YouVatican.
Tighe continued in his interview saying Pope2You has already had tremendous success. "The pope2you site had phenomenal success at the time of its launch… over 5 million hits in the first week or two of its operation….the level of interest was such that we’ve kept it going by focusing on the big themes in the life of the church – Christmas, Easter, World Youth Day….”
Tighe went on to say, the papal Tweets will most likely continue past Lent, as a way to immediately share the Pope's thoughts. Vatican Radio says the church is, "hoping to attract the media-savvy generation and entice them to find out more."
Maybe soon, you'll also be playing the Pope in Words With Friends.
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