Individuals—whether religious bloggers or a cleric—will not have access to .catholic, according to Monsignor Paul Tighe, secretary of the Vatican's social communications council.

The extension will be reserved for church institutions such as dioceses, parishes, religious orders, schools, universities or hospitals. Use of the domain, Tighe said, will be a guarantee that a site is "authentically Catholic."

"The domain will create a cohesive and organized [Web] presence ... so the recognized structure of the church will be mirrored online," he said, according to Italian media reports. Read more

He made his Twitter debut on December 12 to his more than a million followers.

The Pope's first tweet, just one character short of the 140 maximum, was: "Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart."

In English alone, the first tweet was re-tweeted 43,000 times in the first seven hours.

That tweet went viral as the number of followers of his handle @Pontifex and its seven other language extensions grew by more than 5000 new people an hour.

The pope later personally answered three questions from three different continents that were culled from tens of thousands of queries and comments tagged with the #askPontifex hashtag.

The first question was "How can we celebrate the Year of Faith better in our daily lives?" The Pope replied: "By speaking with Jesus in prayer, listening to what he tells you in the Gospel and looking for him in those in need."

The secretary of the Vatican's social communications council, Monsignor Paul Tighe, the idea of launching the first papal tweets in a question-and-answer format was meant to encourage other people to reach out and engage the world online.

"We're hoping other Catholics might engage with some of the questions," he said.

Monsignor Tighe said his office is using the image of the farmer sowing the seed to reflect on the Twitter initiative.

"In sharing the Word of the Gospel, we know that it will touch the hearts of people, maybe in the most unlikely context and settings," he said.

Even though the Pope won't be physically sending the tweets, the messages "are pearls of wisdom coming from the heart of the Pope's teaching and coming from his own mind and ideas", he said

The handle "Pontifex" was chosen because it means "pope and bridge builder", said media adviser Greg Burke.

Sources:

Vatican Information Service

Catholic News Agency

Catholic News Service

Image: The Guardian