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Pope tweets in Latin, leaving followers confused

Published: January 21, 2013

The Pope tweeted in Latin for the first time on Sunday - drawing a blank response from many followers who don't speak the dead language, according to a Daily Mail report on news.com.au.

"Unitati christifidelium integre studentes quid iubet Dominus? Orare semper, iustitiam factitare, amare probitatem, humiles Secum ambulare," he wrote for his Latin handle @Pontifex-ln.

This translates as "What does the Lord command to those wholly eager for the unity of those following Christ? To always pray, to continually do justice, to love uprightness, to walk humbly with Him", according to University of Cambridge scholar Tamer Nawar.

The tweet urges his followers to pray always for the reunification of Christian churches, the BBC reports. The Orthodox church has been split from Rome for a millennium and Protestants parted ways with the Vatican in the 16th century.

But Pope Benedict's message left many Twitter users baffled, with one writing "Benny, nobody understands a word of Latin!"

The Pontiff personally approves the messages that are tweeted in his name in nine languages to his 2.5 million followers and his handle name - Pontifex - means "builder of bridges" in Latin. With just over 5000 followers, the Pope's Latin Twitter account has the smallest following of all his profiles.

FULL STORY Pope tweets in Latin, leaving many followers in the dark (news.com.au)

Pope's first Latin tweet urges unity (Tablet)

 

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Recent Comments

  1. One wonders why Pontifex decided to tweet in Latin.
    When one speaks in ways that are exclusionary, you risk the charge of arrogance; of attempting to display esoteric knowledge that makes others feel mightly inferior. I guess the idea of tweeting in many languages is an inclusionary practice, but why use Latin which is understood only by relatively few people, who could readily access the text in a more common language?
    If communicating is the art of sharing information in mutually accommodating ways, then tweeting in Latin probably failed the test!
    How long did we take to understand the term tweet, in the language of the technological instant!!

  2. What a ridiculous media angle. I hope GetReligion takes it to pieces. The only people who receive the Latin tweet are people who signed up for Latin tweets. The baffled users of that account are probably in fact quite savvy. They know how to get quoted in the press!

  3. Yes, the Pope tweets in Latin. He also tweets in several other languages and only subscribers to the Latin option will be receiving messages in that language despite the silly beat up in the media.
    Those who rush into the glorious incantation that 'Latin is a dead language' are living in a cultural vacuum.
    We might not all agree with much of what comes from the the current occupant of the Throne of Peter, however I suspect he is a much more gifted linguist than many of us here.

    And yes, I own and use quite a number of Latin texts as they prove useful in writing and my love of words.

    “There's no such thing as dead languages, only dormant minds.”
    ? Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

  4. It desparingly appears that all we need now is the re-insertion of Pius XII's long-dead canary within the overall cultural composition to emphatically demonstrate to the World where exactly the Church's pastoral priorities and media preferences reside.

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