VATICAN CITY (AFP) – Pope Benedict XVI will join Twitter from
December 12, with regular tweets in eight languages from the account
@pontifex just in time for Christmas, the Vatican said on Monday.
“The first tweets will be answers to questions sent to the pope on
matters of faith. The public can start sending them starting now,” the
Vatican said.
The account already has 2,435 followers, with numbers rising quickly
immediately after the announcement. An introductory message read:
“Welcome to the official Twitter page of His Holiness Pope Benedict
XVI.”
The tweets will be in Arabic, English, French, German, Italian,
Polish, Portuguese and Spanish and more languages could be added in
future.
“The pope’s presence on Twitter is a concrete expression of his
conviction that the Church must be present in the digital arena,” the
Vatican said in a statement.
It added that Benedict wanted “to ensure that the good news of Jesus
Christ and the teaching of his Church is permeating the forum of
exchange and dialogue that is being created by social media”.
Several leading Vatican prelates are already regular tweeters
including Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for
Culture, as the tradition-bound institution tries to reach a younger
global audience.
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