Welcome to Twitter, Pope Benedict XVI

The world has truly entered the 21^st century -- Pope Benedict XVI has a Twitter account. His holiness’ first tweets appeared on the @Pontifex feed, along with seven coordinated accounts with identical content in Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Polish and Arabic. 

 

According to an interview with Claire Diaz-Ortiz, manager of social innovation at Twitter, “They (the Vatican) want to reach believers where they are and they know that believers are online.”

 

On Wednesday, Dec. 12, Pope Benedict XVI cast his first tweet:

 

I suppose the Vatican was right about believers being online, because in a matter of five days, the Pope now has more than 1.2 million followers.  

 

According to Diaz-Ortiz, “The Vatican wants the Pope to connect with people as much as possible and are encouraging engagement with the Catholic community…”

 

Now you can follow the Pope and receive his words and wisdom in 140 characters or less.

 

As with any public event, our GoComics editorial cartoonists had something to say about the Pope’s recent adoption of social media. 

 

Joe Heller

 

Mike Luckovich

Joel Pett

 

Rob Rogers

 

Gary Varvel

 

Check out the Pope’s Twitter account  -- @Pontifex -- for yourself and tell us what you think. Does the Pope’s social media presence take away from the papal persona, or is it an innovative way to reach out to the Roman Catholic community at large?

 

 

--Julia

Comments

[Meri Horan]

Does the Pope’s social media presence take away from the papal persona, or is it an innovative way to reach out to the Roman Catholic community at large?

[Tesha Leroy]

Great job on the blog, it looks great. I am going to save it and will make sure to visit weekly.

[cáp quang cmc tháng 1]

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