#Blessed

In case you don’t know what hashtags (symbol: #) are used for on Twitter, read this paragraph; but if you know what they are, move on to the next paragraph. Hashtags were created by Chris Messina in 2007 as a way to “tag” a tweet as being about a particular topic or event. Tagging this way then makes search easy. It is left to users to use the hashtag appropriately because indiscriminate usage would just garble everything up. An example of hashtags are used is: “The growth of #socialmedia has been exponential”.

Ok, so now onto the topic of this blog. When we talk about the old meeting the new, I don’t think anyone had in mind the Vatican combining indulgences (an indulgence is what the Church sold granted to Catholics to reduce the time they spent in purgatory; or in Monopoly lingo, a Get Out Of Hell Free card) with Twitter.

So how does it work? The Vatican announced that one of the ways to get an indulgence now includes following the Pope on Twitter! Imagine that: this is now at par with good old ways like helping the poor and doing voluntary work… Well ok, it’s not that simple: the Church clarified that you need to be “truly penitent and contrite” and added that you need to follow papal “rites and pious exercises” live to get an indulgence. And who will verify that or how, the Vatican does not elaborate.

So go ahead, heaven is now a few mouse clicks away! Or as Leslie Horn wrote:
“Perfect opportunity to hashtag everything #blessed.”

So now you know where I got the title for this blog.

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