@Pontifex Punts

February 12, 2013 — Benedict @Pontifex, twitter

To tweet as the holy father of the Catholics was a much dirtier job than Benedict could ever have imagined.  His twitter stream is full of everything that life contains, much of it funny and irreverent. Since he longhand wrote his tweets (in Latin?) and was assisted in the typing of 140 characters, we can only assume he did not read all his tweeps remarks to him. He kept a certain distance from his own stream, since this was the first papal twitter stream and had to be approached with caution. Ironically he is the oldest pontiff elected in 300 years, so his decision to enter social media was a little off beat.  The Vatican social media experts will now need to make some decisions.

Does the handle stay with the office or will Benedict be tweeting as @Pontifex in his retirement?  Will he start to type his own and read those of his tweeps? Is he finished with twitter?  Will the tweeps be more kind to him now that he has end of life issues in public?  Will the new Pope have a fan page and G+ account for hanging out?  Will the Vatican social media presence develop customer service that wows Catholics back to church?  Will prayers be launched to protect the church and the Pope from trolls?  These and many other questions will face the new Pope. #Paxvobiscum.