The Pope's Twitter Handle Is @Pontifex, and He Won't Follow You

The biggest buildup in history to the 90-second process of signing up for a free Twitter account has now come to an end, as famous World War II German soldier and anti-gay marriage activist “Pope Bendict XVI” finally has another Twitter account. His name, on Twitter, is @pontifex, which is a portmanteau of … who knows, something about “penis.” All the good Twitter handles are taken. Where’s your god now, Joseph Ratzinger?

We tried to find this new account, @pontifex, by searching on Twitter. But it doesn’t appear to exist, yet? Maybe it’s not “live.” Pope’s got to roll out slowly, we suppose. So he doesn’t fall. Oh look, you can reach the pope’s secret Twitter by just clicking here: https://twitter.com/pontifex. Also, remember, he is not actually going to tweet! But it’s Monday, and the Vatican reporters have to do something other than cover pedophilia coverups and bizarre gay-love-triangle murders in the Vatican!

While we’re waiting for the Pope to tweet — meaning, “wait for one of his secretaries to tap in something from one of his old Christmas homilies or whatever,” let’s examine the seven Twitter accounts the Pope has decided to let his secretary follow. Hopefully they will be the “seven hobbits” from the upcoming blockbuster movie!

No, they are … himself. Himself, in other languages. The Pope only follows his other accounts.

The Pope rapidly acquired thousand of followers, totaling 27,000 by midday. Unlike the Dalai Lama (@DalaiLama), who follows nobody, the Pope immediately followed six accounts. But he is in effect merely following himself, these being accounts that the Vatican also set up for different countries, such as @Pontifex_de for Germany.

It will be awesome to read the Pope’s words in the original German, we’ll give him that much.