Vatican Deletes All Of Pope Benedict's Tweets

from the erasing-history dept

It was just a couple months ago that Pope Benedict began tweeting to great fanfare and attention. He quickly had well over a million followers. Of course, as you may have heard, the Pope decided to become the first Pope in about 600 years to retire. And, now that this has taken effect… the Vatican appears to have deleted every one of his tweets.

That is, uh, not how you use Twitter. Sure, tweets can be deleted, but it seems particularly bizarre to delete the entire historical record of this one Pope’s tweets, even if there were a small number of them. Of course, at the very least, this means they won’t have to deal with the ex-Pope still having his Twitter login going and rogue tweeting from retirement.

Update: As a few people have pointed out, the Vatican has set up an archive of his tweets on their own website. Still doesn’t explain why they had to erase the originals.

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Comments on “Vatican Deletes All Of Pope Benedict's Tweets”

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33 Comments
Internet Zen Master (profile) says:

Just speculating here but...

It’s possible that the Pontifex twitter account is the official twitter account of the office of the Pope, so it’s possible they deleted all of His Holiness Benedict XVI, Pope Emeritus’ tweets in order to make room for tweets from the upcoming Pope?

Then again, I don’t (nor ever plan) to use Twitter. Never saw the appeal of being able to make a fool out of yourself in front of the entire world in 140 characters or less.

If the new Pope sets up a completely different account, then its likely someone at the Vatican was deliberately tossing tweets in the memory hole. Why they’d do that I have no clue.

The Zen Master says, “We’ll see.”

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: update

“It’s possible that the Pontifex twitter account is the official twitter account of the office of the Pope, so it’s possible they deleted all of His Holiness Benedict XVI, Pope Emeritus’ tweets in order to make room for tweets from the upcoming Pope?”

Will just leave this here from an earlier comment. If the Twitter account is meant to be from the pope, tweets not from the pope(current) shouldn’t be there. If they link to the archive, then they aren’t hiding anything, just preparing it for the next pope, assuming he wants to use it.

Wally (profile) says:

Re: update

My wife grew up roman Catholic, and for once it pays to be a Christian on this sight ;-P

Ok, the simple explanation is that Pope Benedict was not the given name of the man they put under the pope’s hat. That twitter account was meant for the man who had the title of “Pope”. The Vatican would be very glad to archive all what Pope Benedict said and they always do.

Pope Benedict is a former Pope and is now a slightly higher ranking Bishop that has once been a pope. His rank is now Pope Eminent, his title remains Pope Benedict. The rank is that of a retiree like Former President Bill Clinton.

The reason for the deletion of his Twitter feed is simple, the Vatican is saving it for the next Pope. When he dies or retires, they will archive it and do the same.

Yes, even form a Nazarene background such as mine, it seems weird in deed, but in the words of my fellow Nazarenes..its their way 🙂

Internet Zen Master (profile) says:

Re: update

Like I said before, it probably because Benedict’s not the current Pope, and since account is for the Papal office aka the position of being the Pope, it kinda makes sense that they’d clean out the last guy’s tweets and filing them away in an archive. Pretty sure they’ll do the same for the next Pope when he kicks the bucket (this of course assumes twitter will still be around at that point).

It’s simple spring cleaning, that’s all.

Oh, and to the ACs who keep making pedo priest jabs at Benedict: get some new material. A jab at the RCC over the pedo priest scandals is good every so often, but when you do it, at least try to do it with a little style.

special-interesting (profile) says:

Anyone pay attention to that we pay attention to of what are attentive of? (this is one of the best statements I have ever spoken) (are we aware of our awareness of what?)

Revisionist history. If you don’t like what has happened… erase it. (classic ‘revisionist history’)

The Vatican passes up the opportunities of many things. (please pay me for advice) ahahaha

Hint: celibacy is a valued thing. (where do you spent your life’s energy) Don’t waste it. And. Don’t force it. (are you really paying attention to your own values? What is the definition of Hypocrisy)

A minister has a wife and family but a priest has avowed sex. The requirement that all ministers are priests is… weird (self destructive?) On the level of Pope John Paul II… how do you measure?

At the level of the average reader: where do you spend your energy? What is the different between thinking and thought.

What is awareness anyway?

Disclaimer: am a non practicing Christian.

Ninja (profile) says:

They could have made a generic account such as @CurrentPope or something and just switched ownership. And in all seriousness I doubt Benedict ever twitted anything, he just said what he wanted twitted and someone with more skills did it. That’s one of the problems of the Church. They are old. And they are failing to evolve with times. And that’s costing them a fair bit of followers.

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