Twitter may be a sacred thing for most communications experts. Now, even the Vatican has put its faith in the microblogging site. Pope Benedict XVI plans to begin tweeting on 12 December from the @pontifex account.

One of the strongest motives behind the digital push is to engage the coveted 18-34 demographic. As with any other comms strategy, digital is the way to do so. The tweets will have a spiritual message, the first slew of which will respond to questions posed to the #askpontifex hashtag.

The Vatican released a statement condoning the relevance of technology as a means of communication.

“The Pope's presence on Twitter is a concrete expression of his conviction that the Church must be present in the digital arena,” the Vatican says. “This initiative is best understood in the context of his reflections on the importance of the cultural space that has been brought into being by the new technologies...the pope's presence on Twitter can be seen as the 'tip of the iceberg' that is the Church's presence in the world of new media.”

He already has 350,000 followers on its English account and will tweet in eight languages.