Pope Benedict Xvi

Apple will be literally thanking the heavens today after Pope Benedict XVI sent his first tweet from an iPad. You just can’t buy that kind of publicity.

According to news.com.au @ponitfex, as he is known on Twitter, exceeded one million followers last night after his debut tweet. Take that, Justin Bieber.

Here’s what the Tweet said:

Continue reading "Pope shows he’s no twit with polite pontifications" »

In a major global exclusive, The Punch has received a sneak glimpse into the Twitter feed of Pope Benedict XVI.

Despite boasting hundreds of thousands of followers since joining Twitter with the handle @pontifex overnight, His Holiness is yet to tweet.

However, the Pontiff is said to have a dozen or so pithy 140 character pronouncements ready to roll, just as soon as he can find a biblical passage to prove that God, not science, is relaying his Tweets to the world.

Continue reading "Vatileaks: An exclusive look at the Pope’s Twitter feed" »

You have to hand it to the Pope. He’s got ticker. This week he asserted science had provided proof of a key plank of the story of the Catholic Church - a test on bones from a Roman tomb “seems to confirm” they belonged to St Paul the Apostle.

Calling on scientific evidence to prove Church teaching is grounded in historical fact is a staggeringly high-stakes game for the Pope to play. As technology advances, archaeologists will only build an ever-clearer picture of the past. As in the case of St Paul - who along with St Peter was instrumental in founding the modern Church - there may be evidence along the way that suggests certain people lived and died precisely as the Church says.

But what happens when the science calls it into question? What happens if scientists produce convincing evidence that certain things didn’t happen, or someone didn’t exist?

What if that someone was, say, Jesus?

Continue reading "Poker-faced Pope plays high stakes against science" »