Ash Wednesday Marks Beginning of Lent: Pope to Tweet for 40 Days

Pope Benedict XVI observed Ash Wednesday by beginning posting his daily papal message via Twitter, calling for a spiritual awakening, a Vatican Radio blog reported.

Believers are marking Lent with fasting, self-denial, Bible study and helping the poor. By meditating on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, they want to understand God's love even deeper.

However, in "increasingly secular societies," "many young people no longer keep the Lenten season in any special way - that's why the Pontifical Council for Social Communications has come up with a new idea to focus hearts and minds on the challenges contained in Pope Benedict's Lenten message for 2012."

In order to "attract the media-savvy generation and entice them to find out more," the themes from the papal message will be tweeted daily during Lent. Moreover, other speeches and documents in the forthcoming months will probably be posted via Twitter in the same way.

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Msgr. Paul Tighe, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, told Philippa Hitchen the social media platform will be used in other seasons in the life of the church such as Christmas, Easter, World Youth Day and more.

He believes Twitter is the ideal channel for "many of the key Gospel ideas are readily rendered in 140 characters."

And the pope is very popular on the Internet. "The pope2u site had phenomenal success at the time of its launch... over 5 million hits in the first week or two of its operation...," Tighe said.

The pope has a good relationship with social media. During his papacy, the Vatican has launched a YouTube Channel, iPhone app and Web portal, according to Mashable.

Is the social media a proper channel for religion? Will you follow the pope's tweet during the Lent? Leave your comments below.