Coming in at 2,132 ft high, the largest Christmas “tree” will be lit up this coming week using an iPad. And not using just any iPad, but the Pope’s iPad:

Of course we saw Pope Benedict sending his first tweet via an iPad earlier this year, too. And while this doesn’t make the pontiff a regular Tweeter or genuine iPad user, it’s important that he continues to make these very significantly symbolic gestures regarding the use of technology and the Church’s embracing of it.

However, I am looking forward to when the novelty wears off and it’s no longer a headline that the Pope, and more importantly the Church, uses the latest technology. The Church has been in the past - and should be in the future - expected to be using the latest and greatest technology when it is both good and useful. In fact, we should be on the cutting edge of helping develop and apply it all.

Of course, on a personal level regarding the Pope, he’s an octogenarian who’s come pretty far without an iPad. It’s understandable if he doesn’t prefer to personally use one every day. But as a Church, the fact that it’s “cute” or “novel” or any kind of news headline in the first place that we use fancy things like “computers” is not really a good thing. Fortunately, I think we’re beginning to get past it and on to all of the wonderful, substantive things we can do with such amazing technology.

Not that lighting up the world’s largest Christmas tree isn’t still cool.

UPDATE: The Pope will apparently not being using an iPad, but a Sony tablet running “Android.” At least he’s being ecumenical about it.