UPDATE: John Thavis at Catholic News Service has received news from the Holy See that this Twitter account is not originating from the Vatican. It is apparently a private individual impersonating the Vatican. As of this posting, I cannot find "vatican_va" as a user as of this morning, but a link to the feed, which was last updated 19 hours ago, can still be found using the link below.
Thavis writes:
UPDATE: The Vatican_va tweeter appears to have been silenced. No tweets on http://twitter.com/vatican_va since Monday afternoon. Yesterday someone at the Vatican told me this tweeter wouldn’t be posting for long … and he was right. The whole episode has prompted some Vatican media people to remark, “It wasn’t us — but it should have been us.” So don’t be surprised to see a real Vatican Twitter feed in the future
Given the usefulness and popularity of such a thing, I hope the Holy See will consider creating a Twitter account for Vatican Radio, which is the news that was coming from this feed.
One more reason to create a Twitter account even if you don't tweet: The Vatican is now Tweeting in many languages.
What I like about Twitter is that ou can click and follow many sources. Most major news sources, including Catholic news sources tweet their headlines and provide links. It allows you, at a glance to see breaking headlines.
Also, click on those labels with the #, like #catholic or #marchforlife to see even more.
Check out the Vatican's Twitter feed: @vatican_va
Do you see something of interest in another language? Use Google Language Tools - just paste the url, set the langauge and "go".
UPDATE: Edward Pentin blogs the topic at the NC Register in the context of the Holy See's efforts to evangelize using digital media. In part, he writes:
The move is the latest effort on the part of the Vatican to evangelize using digital media and comes on the eve of a press conference which will highlight this very theme.Continue reading the rest of Edward's blogpost: Vatican Now on Twitter
Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, will tomorrow present the Pope’s message for the 44th World Day of Social Communications (16th March 2010) on the subject: “The Priest and Pastoral Ministry in the Digital World: New Media at the Service of the Word.”
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The obedient are not held captive by Holy Mother Church; it is the disobedient who are held captive by the world!