ABC News has put together a Twitter list, including some of these cardinals and our own reporters who are on the ground in the Vatican. You can follow them all here.
Its not a service from the Holy See, but rather Pope Alarm, a new website launched before the start of the conclave on Tuesday that promises when the smoke goes up, youll know whats going down.
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Once the new pope is introduced to the world on the balcony of St. Peters Basilica, thousands more will then check their Fantasy Conclave picks to see how they red.
Cardinal Christian Wiyghan Tumi of Cameroun joins fellow cardinals in prayer inside the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican, April 18, 2005, at the beginning of the conclave.
If the next pope were chosen by an online popularity contest, three social-media-savvy cardinals would have to duke it out for the top spot.
I love the ct contemporary media is giving people access to new ways to the conclave,Conclave 2013 Electing a Pope in a Social Media World said Matthew Bunson, general editor of the Catholic Almanac. It demonstrates that there is intense interest all over the world.
While Bunson called being social media savvy a plus for the contenders, he said its essential the new pope embraces Twitter, as Benedict XVI did, and other forms of digital media.
Once the conclave begins, the cardinals will live detached from the outside world until a new pope is chosen.
Cell phone jamming devices are installed in the Sistine Chapel in order to insure the utmost secrecy, and for the approximately nine cardinals who are active on Twitter, that means taking a social media vacation.
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The Twitter and Facebook accounts of Cardinals Timothy Dolan of New York,new york asian escort Luis Tagle of Manila and Gianfranco Ravasi of Italy have accounted for more than 85 percent of cardinals social-media use, according to Decisyon, an Italian start-up specializing in social media analysis.
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To all participating in Adopt a Cardinal project: Thank you very much for adopting us. Your prayers are helping us discern Gods will, Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of Durban, South Africa tweeted.
After someone enters their email address on the Adopt a Cardinal website, theyre assigned one of the 115 cardinal electors to keep in their prayers. The cardinals know about the site, and they seem to approve.
When you finger down the list of tweeting cardinals, many of them are considered pabaile (papal contenders), Bunson said. Cardinal Angelo Scola (of Italy) tweets aggressively. Cardinal Odilo Scherer (of Brazil) has a Twitter, Social Media, and of course Cardinal Timothy Dolan (of New York) is very popular online.
When the 115 cardinal electors enter the Sistine Chapel on Tuesday for the start of the conclave, theyll have the prayers and support of people who have registered to adopt a cardinal.
Cardinal Christian Wiyghan Tumi of Cameroun joins fellow cardinals in prayer inside the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican, April 18, 2005, at the beginning of the conclave.
Certainly popes have embraced the use of radio, film, and television and then the Internet, he said. Social media is the next area of communication that has to be used and understood if the church is going to evangelize and get the gospel out there.
The cardinal electors will vote four times per day -- twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon -- until they reach a two-thirds majority.
When white smoke billows out of the Sistine Chapels chimney, the centuries-old signal that a new pope has been chosen, thousands of people will get a text message and an email.
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