The Vatican announced earlier this month that the Pope would start tweeting in an attempt to engage with the more than a billion Catholics around the world, especially the young. He will tweet in English and several other languages, including Arabic. While the Vatican is keen to embrace new media, the Pope would manage to keep in check his new-found enthusiasm for Twitter, officials said. “The Pope is not the kind of person who, when they are in a meeting or at lunch, looks at his Blackberry to see if there are new messages. He’s not walking around with an iPad,” said Greg Burke, the Vatican’s media consultant. Benedict is unlikely to follow other Twitter users and will not be engaging in debate with people who send him messages. His tweets will be confined to matters of faith and Christian theology. Benedict will not type his tweets himself, but every message will have his approval. Monsignor Paul Tighe, an Irish priest and the secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, said earlier this month: “Every tweet will have been personally seen and approved by the Pope. They will be pearls of wisdom coming from the heart of the Pope’s teaching.” Papal tweets should not be regarded as infallible teachings of the Church, said Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, the president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communication.
