Yes, you read that right, the Pope is arriving on Twitter. CNN says that the revered religious figure will write the Tweets himself, but–apart from his first Tweet–they’ll be sent out by staff. The Vatican already has an account, but nobody was quite sure what the Pope’s personal Twitter handle will be. Today Reuters reports that @pontifex will be the Pope’s Twitter handle. It means both “pope” and “bridge builder.”
“To proclaim the gospel through the new media means not only to insert expressly religious content into different media platforms, but also to witness consistently, in one’s own digital profile and in the way one communicates choices, preferences and judgements that are fully consistent with the gospel, even when it is not spoken of specifically,” the Pope is quoted as saying in The Guardian.
Who will the Pope “follow”? Will he retweet? Reply to tweets? The Dalai Lama (@dalailama), Tibetan Buddhism’s religious leader, is already on Twitter with over 5,000,000 followers, and he doesn’t interact with any other accounts.
It will be interesting to see whether the Pope uses Twitter in the same way.
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Dialogue Today