The Pope has tweeted
The leader of the world's Catholics has sent his first messages to his hundreds of thousands of (Twitter) followers.
Earlier this month, the Vatican revealed the Pope's official Twitter account, @pontifex -- an attempt to engage with, among other people, some of the more than a billion Catholics around the world. Early this morning, that account began tweeting.
This was the pope's first tweet, which doubled as a digital blessing:
Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart.
-- Benedict XVI (@Pontifex) December 12, 2012
The reactions to that first tweet varied:
@pontifex God bless you Papa
-- Eileen Blackwell (@12meadow) December 12, 2012
@pontifex Greetings, Trifelge Putinard. Our humble reverences are with you in your calufrijulous extriplation. Glory, oh Bright One.
-- Anemone of the State (@x7o) December 12, 2012
@pontifex right on bro
-- rsidney (@rdotsidney) December 12, 2012
The Pope's message itself was, you'll note, delivered in English, rather than Latin or Italian or German or Spanish or ... anything else. While the @pontifex account uses English, seven other accounts -- @pontifex_de (German), @pontifex_es (Spanish), @pontifex_pt (Portuguese), @pontifex_pl (Polish), @pontifex_il (Italian), @pontifex_fr (French), and @pontifex_ar (Arabic) -- tweet in seven other languages. And, this morning, the Pope delivered the same sentiment of friendship and gratitude in each of those languages.