The Pope pushed the site live and tweeted about it using an iPad. The site itself is the first time the Vatican has provided a single place for all the news and opinion surrounding the Church, the Vatican state and the Pope.

The tweet read:

"Dear Friends, I just launched News.va Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ! With my prayers and blessings, Benedictus XVI"

The Twitter account is clearly not the 84-year-old pontiff's. It belongs to the Vatican's news department. Although it would be something to watch Benedict go nuts tweeting troubles with his alb and joy at his caprese, it seems unlikely.

The site, News.va, aggregates not just the press releases, messages and internal reporting, including newspaper and radio, in the city-state, but also the various social media accounts run by the Vatican. In addition to Twitter, these include Facebook, YouTube and Flickr.

The New York Times reports:

"Benedict has been bedeviled by communications woes during much of his six-year papacy, much of it the fault of a large Vatican bureaucracy that doesn't always communicate well internally. Officials hope the new portal, while mostly designed to provide Vatican news in an easy-to-use setting to the outside world, might also improve the Vatican's own internal communications by sharing information."

It is already several generations ahead of, say, the Vatican Information Service website, in readability and functionality. With the Pope's endorsement, News.va may prove to be an inspiration for the rest of the Holy See's electronic communications.

The occasion was the 44th annual World Communications Day, traditionally a time for the Vatican to project an annual message from the church to its people and the rest of the world. This year's message stood in sharp contrast to the missive he delivered in 2009, when the Holy See stated that mass media - including online information sources - acted as a "poison" that numbed morality and sensitivity. "'It recounts, repeats and amplifies evil," he said, "making us accustomed to horrendous acts, desensitizing us and, in some ways, poisoning us." So, why the about-face?

In contrast to the popular conceptions of church leaders and religious figures as being out of touch, the Holy Father urged priests to express their message not as a relic or a theory but as something "concrete, present and engaging...

"Consecrated men and women working in the media have a special responsibility for opening the door to new forms of encounter, maintaining the quality of human interaction, and showing concern for individuals and their genuine spiritual needs."

In essence, the Catholic Church is beginning to sound like some of the clients of digital ad agencies during and after the dot-com boom. While we wouldn't dare condense the Pope's message down to "we gotta get us some of that-there Internet," we do feel that this call to online action is a bit late and a bit out of step with last year's World Communications Day message.

In 2009, Pope Benedict gave an address on new technologies that seemed like a two-sided coin where the Web was concerned.

While applauding the ability of "so-called cyberspace" to foster dialog between diverse and geographically distant people, the Pope continued to say that the social web trivialized the concept of friendship and might contain words and images that "are degrading of human beings, that promote hatred and intolerance, that debase the goodness and intimacy of human sexuality or that exploit the weak and vulnerable."

None of these notes were present in this year's message, which called for a strong pastoral presence online and positioned the social Web as a tool of the ministry rather than a dangerous frontier of questionable content from which to protect laypersons.

What do you think: Should the Church be more visible online? How does the Holy See's position effect priests and other church leaders on the ground, many of whom have taken to the Web already to enhance their outreach and ministry? And why do you think the Pope's message is so encouraging about using the Internet as opposed to last year's cautionary tale? Let us know your opinions in the comments.

None of these apps look to be groundbreaking in either design or functionality. The iPhone/iPod touch app, once approved, will give users the ability to watch videos and hear speeches by Pope Benedict XVI, as well as other content from Catholic events worldwide.

Facebook App: Boring

The Facebook app, which is currently loading very slowly, is also not exactly the most groundbreaking app either. Facebook users will be able to send and receive 20 different virtual postcards of the Pope, with texts available in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish (with Latin being conspicuously absent here). According to the app's description, installing it will allow you to "Spread friendship with the Pope and become a witness of Christ in the world through the web."

In January this year, the Vatican also launched its YouTube channel, though so far, none of the videos posted there have gone viral yet.

Disappointment: Can't Poke the Pope

For now, however, users who were hoping to get a chance to poke the Pope or even just friend him on Facebook are out of luck, as the Pope does not have an official Facebook profile, yet.