Pope Benedict XVI pushes a button on a tablet at the Vatican to send his first Twitter message.
The long wait is over and a new era has begun – Pope Benedict XVI sent his first
tweet today.
The pontiff had about 700,000 followers on his English account within an hour of sending his message on Twitter.
Before he even sent the first line – using the handle @Pontifex, which means "bridge builder" in Latin - he had amassed about 1 million followers in eight languages.
The inaugural message read: "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."
It came with the expected reactions of awe, excitement, congratulations, a few jokes and some nastier comments.
It was also retweeted about 2,000 times in two minutes.
Vatican officials say the Pope wrote out his message and pushed the send button himself.
Though, in the future, another staffer may post the messages prepared by the pontiff.
This signifies an embrace of social media for old-world messages.
I was late to the Twitter game, creating my handle just last year (@GinnieGraham).
After getting used the nuances, the appeal is being able to speak directly to anyone.
News breaks on Twitter, celebrities talk to their fans and friends tweet in real-time during television shows.
Politicians campaign directly to constituents, and religious leaders can spread the word of God faster.
Limited to 140 words, it’s a sound-bite world in print.
A faith cannot be summed up in that space.
But, it can showcase the poetic beauty and hope contained in passages from religious texts.
My grandfather was a Southern Baptist deacon in a small Ottawa County church, and the most wise and faithful man I’ve ever known.
His favorite Biblical verse came just after the most famous one from John 3:16.
He was fond of John 3:17: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
Pawpaw was never on Twitter, but he understood the power of brevity in providing inspiration.
