I guess it was a matter of time…

Benedict XVI (who also just happens to have the hottest handle around: @pontifex) is finally officially expressing himself — 140 characters at a time. And there were won’t be intermediaries or spokespeople. What you see will be coming directly from him (well, the first one will; the rest will come from designated people at the Pope’s behest).

Not that the 85-yr-old Bishop of Rome is exactly new to Twitter; he has used non-official accounts prior to this, and The Vatican effectively used social networking to help build awareness of the Pope’s newly minted tweet-line. And it seems that he is well on the way to half a million followers on the first day.

Of course, a lot of that attention is not positive. There are already tweets directed at the pope that are accusatory in nature, and there seems to be a cottage industry of spoof accounts springing up.

However you slice it, it is cool to see influential people leverage social networking to interact with interested parties.

What do you think about the Pope being on Twitter?