"Today is Benedict XVI's birthday," Francis tweeted on April 16.

"Let us remember him in our prayers and thank God for giving him to the Church and the world."

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On March 23, Bishop Tamaki put out the following tweet.

"Jesus spoke to a tree/fish/wind/water [a]nd other things ... i spoke to a $100 bill early in my life [a]nd said 'you [a]nd all your whanau come to me'."

Twitter users expressed their outrage at this, describing Bishop Tamaki as "greedy".

This isn't the first time Bishop Tamaki has tweeted about money, the New Zealand Herald reported.

Last May, Destiny Church circulated images of wads of cash and the Twitter hashtag "#iwannagive" to followers before its annual conference.

In the same month, Bishop Tamaki again tweeted along with a photograph of $100 bills saying, "The Bible speaks of a Blessing (includes $$$ too) that 'Overtakes You'... time for you to be overtaken!!"

In 2014, the church received widespread criticism after Bishop Tamaki asked followers to "shower the stage" in money during a Sunday morning service.

Thousands of $100 and $50 bills were strewn across the Destiny Church in Auckland.

The scene was photographed and posted on Twitter by Bishop Tamaki.

He captioned it: "A Sweet-Smelling Fragrance that is Acceptable to God (Phil 4:15-19). My God shall Supply all your need".

This also drew widespread criticism on social media.

According to ex-congregation members, families were pressured to give "love offerings" and other cash donations above the expected amount.

Sources

• New Zealand Herald
• Image: Group Sects

Christ "used tweets before everyone else, with elementary phrases made up of fewer than 45 characters like 'Love one another'", said Ravasi, the Vatican's equivalent of a culture minister.

"A bit like in television today, he delivered a message through a story or a symbol," Ravasi said at a conference with Italy's leading newspaper editors.

The cardinal emphasized the importance of clergy making full use of modern-day computer technology.

"If a cleric, a pastor is not interested in communication, they are defying their duty," he said. Continue reading

The 30-year-old Catholic, of Italian-Egyptian parentage, is a communications expert employed as a management consultant by multinational Ernst & Young in Rome.

After her appointment, journalists checked her very active Twitter account and found several indiscreet tweets. For example:

• Back in February, she tweeted that Pope Benedict XVI had leukemia, although the Vatican has repeatedly denied that any specific health concern led to his decision to resign the papacy.
• She also sent out several seemingly friendly tweets about Gianluigi Nuzzi, the journalist who received stolen documents from the Pope's butler and gave rise to the Vatican leaks affair. At one stage, Chaouqui told Nuzzi he was "bleeding right".
• At another point, Chaouqui tweeted: "Syrian children are dying, and the Church is fighting against the butler. How can a Catholic stay Christian like this?"
• She also made a critical comment about the Vatican's Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. On February 11, the day Benedict announced his resignation, she tweeted: "Bertone has won ... as a believer, I'm depressed."

National Catholic Reporter correspondent John Allen — who suggests Chaouqui might become the first papal nominee in history to lose a job because of use of social media — says "that last tweet suggests Chaouqui may have something to learn about the Vatican. If anything was clear about Benedict's resignation, it was that it also meant the imminent end of Bertone's run".

Allen says Chaouqui also sent a tweet on the evening that Pope Francis was elected, saying "they tell me he's French" — apparently because she got confused between "Francesco" and francese (the Italian word for "French").

However, Allen believes the Pope will probably retain Chaouqui, otherwise he would create the precedent "that anyone who wants to stop his reform can do so by digging up dirt on the people he tasks with carrying it out".

Sources:

National Catholic Reporter

Chiesa

Image: ManagerOnline

He made his Twitter debut on December 12 to his more than a million followers.

The Pope's first tweet, just one character short of the 140 maximum, was: "Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart."

In English alone, the first tweet was re-tweeted 43,000 times in the first seven hours.

That tweet went viral as the number of followers of his handle @Pontifex and its seven other language extensions grew by more than 5000 new people an hour.

The pope later personally answered three questions from three different continents that were culled from tens of thousands of queries and comments tagged with the #askPontifex hashtag.

The first question was "How can we celebrate the Year of Faith better in our daily lives?" The Pope replied: "By speaking with Jesus in prayer, listening to what he tells you in the Gospel and looking for him in those in need."

The secretary of the Vatican's social communications council, Monsignor Paul Tighe, the idea of launching the first papal tweets in a question-and-answer format was meant to encourage other people to reach out and engage the world online.

"We're hoping other Catholics might engage with some of the questions," he said.

Monsignor Tighe said his office is using the image of the farmer sowing the seed to reflect on the Twitter initiative.

"In sharing the Word of the Gospel, we know that it will touch the hearts of people, maybe in the most unlikely context and settings," he said.

Even though the Pope won't be physically sending the tweets, the messages "are pearls of wisdom coming from the heart of the Pope's teaching and coming from his own mind and ideas", he said

The handle "Pontifex" was chosen because it means "pope and bridge builder", said media adviser Greg Burke.

Sources:

Vatican Information Service

Catholic News Agency

Catholic News Service

Image: The Guardian

An anonymous German is using Twitter under the name of Joseph of Nazareth and providing a light-hearted commentary on the Christmas story from St Joseph's perspective.

Joseph began Tweeting on 1 December, and has already gained around 9,500 followers and has published over 90 tweets, which are now distributed both in German and English.

Joseph von Nazareth says he is concerned that although most people "have heard the [Christmas] story a thousand times, nobody has ever thought about how Joseph felt about the whole thing."

These tweets attempt to give a modern male's perspective on the events that led to the Nativity and is an attempt to open up the Christmas story to a large section of the population, particularly young men, who might not have have had the opportunity of connecting with it.

The tweets might prove controversial for some, although they do remain tame on the whole - even if they sometimes appear to be too humorous at times.

For example, after finding out that Mary is pregnant, Joseph von Nazareth wrote: "Did not sleep a wink the whole night. I am seriously considering whether I should leave Mary."

Enhancing the social aspect of Twitter, Joseph even asked his male readers whether they had ever experienced a similar situation, namely: "A girlfriend pregnant by another."

Other tweets reveal a sensitive man, deeply in love with Mary - whom he remains devoted to throughout, even after discovering that she was expecting a child that was not his. Before the shock revelation, Joseph is concerned by the fact that she is "a little down" and "stressed and tired".

Source

• Sky News
• Spero News
• Image: Sky News
• Twitter: Joseph of Nazareth