The expected date for the Pope’s first Twitter
message is 12 December. Everyone is on tenterhooks to see what thoughts
the Pope will publish on the most rapidly expanding social network of
the moment. His account has almost a million followers and numbers are
increasing rapidly.
The spokesman for the Vatican Press Office and director of Vatican Radio offered some words of advice for interpreting the Pope’s messages in the evangelical and deep context of faith: “Tweeting will not save the world but it can be an important way of communicating a word of truth.”
The title of Fr. Lombardi’s editorial is “Un nuovo servizio del Vangelo”(“A new tool for serving the Gospel”) and it tells an apologue about the “new tweeter who entered the digital world to tweet,” adding that Pope Benedict XVI’s tweets can be welcomed or rejected, as is the case with all his messages. In any case, Twitter will help people to feel “the Pope closer to them.”
“The number of characters in a tweet, 140, are not that few – Fr. Lombardi remarked -. Most of the Gospel’s passages are shorter; the Beatitudes are far briefer. A bit of conciseness is not a bad thing. We have known for centuries that hearing a few of jesus’ words in the morning and carrying them with us in our minds and hearts, helps us through the day and through life.”
“In any case - the Jesuit commented - it is important to understand why this word is important, where it comes from and where it is going, in what life context it gains meaning. Tweets are not the only things that influence life and they do not do so automatically. Hence a tweet may get an enthusiastic response or it may get a negative response. A seed may fall on rocky land or amidst the brambles of negative prejudices and suffocate but it may also fall on good and fertile land that gives life to fruit and multiplies.”
“Obviously - Fr. Lombardi stressed - Social networks are not going to save the world but of the world’s one million baptised Catholics and seven million men and women, a few million people will have another means of feeling the Pope closer to them, read some words addressed from him to them, some pearls of wisdom to carry with them in their hearts and minds, to share with their friends on Twitter, a useful tool for the new evangelisation.”
“May those who have ears to listen with, listen,” the Vatican spokesman said, before going on to talk about the results of Pope Benedict XVI’s arrival on the continent of digital communication.