Tweeting Cardinals Spread the Word in 140 Characters

December 06, 2011: “The concise and pithy language of Twitter can teach religious communication a great deal,” says Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi President of the Pontifical Council for Culture since 2007.
As the Vatican’s top culture man, Cardinal Ravasi breaks off from his rounds at least once a day to shoot off a tweet to his followers, either snappy quotes from the Bible, famous philosophers and dons, or details about art festivals, all designed to keep religion relevant for a younger generation.
He says that his mission is to revitalize what faith means for “the children of television and the Internet”.
The Cardinal is keen to get priests, bishops and other cardinals to use Twitter, Internet blogs and social networking sites to bring to life the Bible’s wealth of stories.
“A child today, who passes an entire afternoon in front of a computer screen, has a different way of communicating from ours… We want to become part of the minimal, almost microscopic communication of tweets,” the Cardinal added.
Humorous or serious, Ravasi’s tweets — much like the blog he writes for Italy’s Sole 24 Ore financial newspaper — often include words of support for the country’s disaffected youth, caught in the grip of an economic crisis.