Pope Tweets

http://mashable.com/2012/11/08/pope-benedict-twitter-account/ 

I saw this article the other day on Mashable about the Pope using his own Twitter account and thought I would share it. Other than the fact that I thought the image of the Pope tweeting and using hashtags was hilarious, the idea behind doing this is actually kind of interesting.

According to the article, the Vatican had technically started using Twitter last year - with only one tweet. Beginning soon, the Pope will have his own account in which he'll send out tweets on a somewhat regular basis. However, I was disappointed to see that it would be someone else sending them, and he would simply approve them.

The purpose of this new type of communication is to reach the masses, especially the younger generation. While obvious, this to me seemed out-of-character for the Catholic Church - which tends to be very traditional and slow to embrace growing trends. The opportunity, however, seemed to important to embrace this new media. The hope, I assume, is that if they can reach the younger generation and publish religious messages to them directly - they're more likely to embrace the religion as they grow older. Or maybe they Pope just wants to do what the cool kids are doing these days?