Vatican launches new Twitter channels to inform about the life of the Church

Vatican City, Mar 23, 2010 / 06:03 am

Vatican Radio has announced the launch of several Twitter channels to share news and multimedia content about the life of the Church on one of the newest popular social networking sites.

Twitter is a microblogging service that allows only 140 characters for each entry, which is known as a “tweet.” Computer users and users of mobile devices follow news sources, public figures, celebrities, businesses and private individuals and organizations through the service.

Users share their thoughts, activities, and website links. They can converse with other users and repeat other people’s tweets, an action known as “retweeting.”

On Saturday Vatican Radio announced its six Twitter channels in English, Spanish, Italian, French, German and Portuguese.

“Through these Twitter channels, Vatican Radio and other Vatican media outlets will inform users about the publication of news and multimedia content of particular relevance to the life of the Church,” Vatican Radio said.

The English-language channel is "news_va_en" at http://www.twitter.com/news_va_en.

The first English-language Tweet from the Vatican announced the publication of the Letter of the Pope to Catholics of Ireland on Sexual Abuse and the availability of multimedia documents related to it.

A new Vatican resource site, www.resources.va, was announced at the same time as the new Twitter channels.

As of Monday evening, the English channel had more than 1,100 subscribers, which the Twitter site calls "followers."

Many Catholics are using Twitter to make friends and contacts, to spread news, and to share their faith.

Catholic News Agency's own Twitter account is "cnaLive," located at http://www.twitter.com/cnaLive.