Popes and Twitter: Top 5 Reasons Why They Don’t Go Well Together

Clearly, popes and Twitter don’t go well together: Several months after joining Twitter, Pope Benedict XVI decided to resign. Is this purely coincidental? Also, take a look at Pope Francis’ fake Twitter account!

The online and offline worlds both have been in quite a rumble since the new pope, Pope Francis (Jorge Mario Bergoglio), has been elected. Pope Francis succeeded his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, after the latter decided to resign his papal post.

In light of all the chaos, one should stop for a while and think: Why, oh why, did Pope Benedict XVI choose to retire “early”? This is the first resignation in 600 years? Is it because he’s not as healthy as he used to? Or because he wants to enjoy and live more freely? Or maybe it’s because God told him to? After all, he was quoted as saying:

It was not revealed exactly where Pope Benedict XVI was able to get God’s instructions from.

Wherever it was, it certainly wasn’t from the Twitterverse!

In fact, a lot of like-minded individuals collectively believe that the pope’s shocking resignation was caused by Twitter itself. Indeed, maybe he just got terribly traumatized because of the unpleasant replies that he kept on getting in Twitter? Here are the top five reasons why Popes and Twitter don’t really get along well:

1. Twitter is far too overwhelming. And uncensored. Like, for real.

Our pope would have a hard time understanding why people behave this way. “Why do they seem to attack me virtually all the time? Am I using Twitter wrong…?”
Seriously, how would you like it if your holy and sacrilegious tweet, like…

We must trust in the mighty power of God’s mercy. We are all sinners, but His grace transforms us and makes us new.
~ Benedict XVI (@Pontifex)

…received replies such as these?

@Pontifex you’re a pedophile defender ~ A Martin (@LxMrtn)

@Pontifex You’re a real Negative Nancy, and also delusional & unrealistic. #WelcomeToTwitter ~ Ω (@OmegaMusic444)

.@Pontifex so are you going to molest little kids virtually now ~ stevn (@scr0tum)

No amount of explanation can make the pope understand why people behave liberally on Twitter. I don’t think telling him to “Keep calm and love God” would be enough.

You can’t also just tell him to ignore the haters because “Hey, haters gonna hate. Potatoes gonna potate.”

Nope. It’s just not acceptable!

2. Twitter is a by-product of Science and we all know the deal between Science and Religion, right?

Look at it this way: it’s like your Mother was this highly popular student in high school. Your Mother was good-looking, innovative and highly intelligent. She’s phenomenal!

However, she doesn’t get along with her school’s Principal. The Principal thinks your Mother is encouraging self-centered behavior. The Principal doesn’t really approve of your Mother’s behavior.

Time passes by and your Mother gives birth to you! You enter the school and the Principal is watching your every move to find out if you will be as bad as your Mother.

Do you think that you and the Principal would get along nicely, even if you tried your best to suck up to him?

Never! The Principal already has this pre-conceived notions about your Mother so he won’t really like you. Sure, he might be decent and civil towards you but at the end of the day, you’re still your Mother’s offspring.

And just in case you’re highly confused right now:

– Mother: Science

– Principal: Religion

– You: Twitter

Seriously, though, you got the analogy upon reading it, right? Don’t lie, it’s just us here!

3. Twitter is far too stressful!

As a pope, he’s expected to act conservatively, holy and divine all the time during his whole (offline)  papal reign. Now, because of Twitter, he’s expected to maintain that same level of facade online as well?!

Surely, upon election in the old days, it wasn’t specified in the job description that a pope needed to devote time for posting on social media platforms, right?

Hey, maybe some popes even thought, “Oh well, at least people won’t have any access to me ALL the time. I still have enough time for meditation and self-insight.” He still has ample time to relax!

But then Twitter comes into the big picture and the thoughts now go like this, “I have to put my messages on that? Well, okay…Wait, why am I receiving tiny blue dots?…Oh, someone replied! Great, maybe we can share our views on the recent – what? What does this word mean?…Oh, wow…No, no, don’t let me read anymore…What…What has become of mankind?!” 

Do you think he’d still be able to relax after all that?

4. Twitter makes the pope’s job extra hard. It is home to the extremists – the pope would have a hard time maintaining an objective view of the world

On one side, we have the devout Catholics who eat, pray and live on religion’s premises.

On the other side, we have the extreme…opposite of that.

If you were the pope and you were supposed to “take care of the needy and come to those who need it”, would you willingly throw yourself to the devout Catholics or to the extreme opposites instead?

Common sense would tell you to just preach to those devout Catholics…

But divine goodness would tell you to talk to those extreme opposites because they’re the ones who need to listen to your messages.

Hard choice, no?

5. Twitter promotes fake idol worship. We can’t have that, now, can we?

Just minutes after the declaration of the new pope, Pope Francis’ fake Twitter read:

Immensely happy to be the new Pope, Francis I. ~ Jorge M Bergoglio (@JMBergoglio)

Of course, it was heavily retweeted and favorited by a lot of users.

If you’re smart enough, you’d realize that this account is a fake. Still, this fact didn’t stop the increase of followers from 5,000 to 100,000 in just under a few hours.

The real pope would have a hard time  fighting against his fake counterpart, usually because the real one doesn’t have enough time to generate a witty message while the fake one has the luxury to research more! As a result, more and more users would appreciate the fake pope’s tweets and would soon come to idolize him instead of the real pope. How horrendous would it be for the real pope, right?!

At the end of the day, whatever you say, popes and Twitter would certainly never click. Whatever you do, whatever you believe in, whatever food you had for breakfast, popes and Twitter are two ideologies that will never be in amiable harmony with each other.

And yes, you can tweet me on that.

On another note, do you think the pope uses these Twitter shortcuts?

This article was not written nor meant to offend any religious or scientific entity. Therefore, if you got the wrong impression and you were offended upon reading, here’s a virtual chocolate cookie as a peace offering for you!