December 3, 2012. Today in the Vatican the official Twitter handle @Pontifex of Benedict XVI was presented to the micro-blogging site that has more than 500 million users.

If there is one thing that characterises the literary style of Pope Benedict it is the abilty to express and summarize in a few words things that are essential and deeply profound. And so why not make use of Twitter that has been created precisely for expressing a thought that makes sense in no more than 140 characters?

It is symptomatic of what the Pontiff wrote in his message for the upcoming World Social Communications Day: “In the essentiality of short messages, often no longer than a verse of the Bible, you can express profound thoughts, if you do not neglect the cultivation the interior life.” Here then is a new sense that can be given to the thousands of tweets that are sent in avalanches on the internet.

“His micro-messages will be ‘pearls of wisdom,’ explained president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications Msgr. C. Maria Celli, “that will be taken from the core of his catechesis.”

Benedict XVI will twitter direct for the first time during the General Audience of December 12, 2012, feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The head of Vatican Communications anticipated the news that an app for smartphone will be arriving directly, that will be dedicated to the Pope: “The Pope”. It will be available for free on Apple Store by the end of the year, and a version is already in the pipeline for Android as well.

A Vatican footnote underscores: “The Pope’s presence on Twitter is a concrete demonstration of his conviction that the Church must be present in the digital world.”