Now that we’ve officially sent Pope Benedict XVI off into his retirement sunset, or at least to the palatial estate he’ll be residing at until the convent is finished, it’s time to get down to business.
In the next few weeks cardinals from every corner of the earth will gather to determine the future of the Roman Catholic Church and its new leader. There are many, many things to be considered in such a task and many are already speculating. But are the asking the right questions?
For instance, what’s the precedent for the official handing over of the papal Twitter account? This very morning the then Pope sent out one final (sub-140 character) message to his more than a million followers, and as his papacy officially came to a close, so too did Benedict XVI’s twitter account.
The account has been renamed, Benedict XVI’s tweets have been removed (not sure why this was necessary), and now we wait with bated breath as the Holy See determines its fate…
So now what? There are so many unknowns swirling around the papal Twitter succession:
Will the Twitter account be a contributing factor as we head into the conclave?
Who will be tweeting in the interim?
…follow-up: Will, as is the case with the papacy itself, the Camerlengo be taking over tweet duties in the interim?
…follow-up to my follow-up: Is Ewan McGregor up to the task?
Will someone be live-tweeting from the conclave?
…follow-up: Will someone please create a fake Twitter account that “live-tweets” from this historically extremely secretive process of selecting a pope?
I know that due to the unprecedentedness of the handing over of the papal Twitter account, there are no solid answers. I just hope the cardinals take “capacity for brevity and wit” into consideration, and lets not forget the “quality of all potential memes and GIFs.” It’s going to happen, might as well be prepared.
Until then I suppose we’ll have to wait and see and hope that our Twitter prayers are answered.
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Mashable: Pope’s Twitter Account to Shut Down When Benedict XVI Leaves Office
…bi-daily smile…