Pope Benedict joined Twitter today and was greeted by hateful tweets from Catholic bashers laced with profanity. Pope Benedict XVI ’s new Twitter account has been revealed, @Pontifex, and it already has more than 100,000 followers and is expected to be eventually followed by millions.
The Vatican revealed the new personal Twitter account for Pope Benedict XVI, and said the leader of the Catholic Church would answer one question about his faith every week — with the first coming next Wednesday. Users of Twitter can send questions using the hashtag #askpontifex or #B16 and church officials said the first tweets from the account would come this week.
“The Pope’s presence on Twitter is a concrete expression of his conviction that the Church must be present in the digital arena,” the Vatican said. The Pope’s involvement in the popular social media outlet “can be seen as the ‘tip of the iceberg’ that is the Church’s presence in the world of new media.”
Pope Benedict himself will hit the button to send the first tweet from the account, but others will send tweets on his behalf frequently. The term @Pontifex means “bridge builder” in Latin.
Immediately after the announcement, the account was hit with a rash of vile tweets.
Roseanne Barr said, “the pope is just another man in a dress telling women what to do.”
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“Hahaha The Pope Has Twitter Accounts Now Let’s Hit This Bitch Up With Some Hate Tweets,” another user tweeted.
Some other hateful tweets include:
“Hey @Pontifex hahaha f— off pope go back to middle ages n take ur backwards mind set w/ u.”
“The pope is on Twitter! Yay now I can let him know how much I hate him!”
“Hey Pope piss up a rope you old bastard”
“Ask him when the Church is going to change their prohibition on condoms, which is causing millions to die in the Third World.’”
