The Pope has officially begun tweeting from his own Twitter account (@pontifex).
At the end of his weekly general audience this morning in the Paul VI Hall, the Holy Father sent out the following tweet:
“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.”
The same tweet was simultaneously translated into seven other languages and sent out on seven other accounts.
According to Twitter’s Claire Diaz-Ortiz, just minutes before the first tweet went out, the Pope had managed to attract one million Twitter followers across all eight accounts.
This afternoon he began tweeting answers to questions on the faith that have been sent in over the past week via #askpontifex.
Msgr. Paul Tighe, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, told Vatican Radio the event was “an extraordinary moment,” adding that the attention to the event within the “Twitter-sphere” itself was quite impressive: more than 2 thousand re-tweets in under two minutes.
View the Holy Father's Twitter page and follow his responses by clicking here: @pontifex.