Pope Benedict to Get Personal Twitter Account

Mashable.com writes “He already has a billion followers. Now, Pope Benedict XVI will join the Twitter-sphere, tweeting from a personal account along with the world’s celebrities, leaders and ordinary folk.

Mashable continues with the following story.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi made the announcement Thursday, saying details about Benedict’s handle and other information will come when the Vatican officially launches the account, perhaps before the end of the year.

The 85-year-old Benedict sent his first tweet from a Vatican account last year when he launched the Vatican’s news information portal, aimed at the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics. The new Twitter account will be his own, though it’s doubtful Benedict himself will wrestle down his encyclicals, apostolic exhortations and other papal pronouncements into 140-character bites.

Benedict, who writes longhand and doesn’t normally use a computer, will more likely sign off on tweets written in his name.

Pope Benedict XVI may have sent his first tweet last year from a Vatican Twitter account, but the pontiff is now gearing up to get his own personal handle.

According to a Newsmax report, the Pope will start tweeting from a personal Twitter account by the end of the year. A Vatican official said he will be sharing opinions and Church news via the social networking platform.

“It will be proper language, for example pointing to his weekly catechesis [teaching] or whatever he is doing on that day,” the source told Newsmax. “You’re probably not going to get any tweets saying ‘a great new pizzeria has just opened in my neighborhood.’”

The Pope will most likely not write the tweets himself, but will have to sign off on them. The official said his tweets will be “fairly infrequent” and likely “not veer too far from his texts.”

Last year, the Pope sent a tweet from the Vatican’s official account to coincide with a new Vatican information site, news.va. He wrote via an iPad: “Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ! With my prayers and blessings, Benedictus XVI.” The Vatican official said Pope Benedict was so intrigued by the concept, it’s been in the works for him to get his own Twitter account ever since.

Pope Benedict also embraced a Sony tablet to light up the world’s tallest Christmas tree in 2011 with the touch of a button.

This isn’t the first time a Pope has embraced a new medium to reach out to the masses. In 1931, Pope Pius XI worked with the Italian inventor of the radio, Guglielmo Marconi, to set up the Vatican’s first radio broadcasting.

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Tags: Pope, Pope Benedict XVI, Twitter