Time off Purgatory Anyone? – Vatican Reveals Latest Twitter Strategy for Pope Francis

So in a bid to keep up with the times, the Vatican has decided to take the Pope’s interaction on social media to another level.

Pope Francis will be granting “time off purgatory” to any Tweeter who follows his account @Pontifex during Catholic World Youth Day that’s being held in Rio De Janeiro.

How will he be doing this? Well, the Pope will be offering “indulgences” on the social media platform.

The church grants “indulgences” to people and this is believed to shed time on how long Catholics will have to stay in purgatory after confessing and absolving their sins. Though we’re not too sure if this means followers will have to publically tweet their sins!

But it’s not just Twitter they’re incorporating into this grand new scheme, oh no! The Vatican have also created an online hub for their followers including an app, Facebook page and even a Pinterest account.

According to a report by The Guardian:

Mindful of the faithful who cannot afford to fly to Brazil, the Vatican's sacred apostolic penitentiary, a court which handles the forgiveness of sins, has also extended the privilege to those following the "rites and pious exercises" of the event on television, radio and through social media.

"That includes following Twitter," said a source at the penitentiary, referring to Pope Francis' Twitter account, which has gathered seven million followers. "But you must be following the events live. It is not as if you can get an indulgence by chatting on the internet."

"What really counts is that the tweets the Pope sends from Brazil or the photos of the Catholic World Youth Day that go up on Pinterest produce authentic spiritual fruit in the hearts of everyone," said Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, head of the pontifical council for social communication, told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

Catholic World Youth Day is actually a week-long event starting on July 22th, so you’ll have plenty of time to check in and follow the Pontiff on the various social media platforms.

The Pope’s twitter account has now close to 3 million followers but personally we look forward to seeing pictures of the many styles of the Pope on Pinterest!