After the death or resignation of a pope, the Sancta Sedes (Holy See) becomes vacant. Today, the Twitter account of former pope Benedict reflects this reality and has gone “Sede Vacante,” or latin for vacant seat.
As such, all of the former pope’s 39 tweets that he made since joining Twitter on December 12th, 2012 are gone. In the world of Twitter, @Pontifex hasn’t tweeted yet.
Yes, all of pope Benedict XVI’s tweets have been removed from Twitter – but they aren’t completely wiped out. The Vatican has archived all 39 on their news site and you can read all of them in nine different languages there.
The last tweet ever sent out by pope Benedict read “Thank you for your love and support. May you always experience the joy that comes from putting Christ at the centre of your lives.”
Reports from last week based on Vatican radio claimed that the @Pontifex account would be shuttered following Benedict’s resignation. Yesterday, we learned that that wasn’t entirely accurate. Rather than be deleted, the account will lie dormant while the Conclave selects a new pope. At that time, it’ll be up to the new pope to decide whether or not he/she wants to continue the social media outreach.
“Obviously we leave all decisions to the new man. But we would hope that he might continue to use @pontifex, which would maintain continuity,” said Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications Paul Tighe.