Pope Alarm: Papal Election to Be Announced Via Text or Twitter
While the Catholic church may be known for it's 150 year-old tradition of creating white smoke to signal the election of a new pope, it appears that the church has also modernized its method for some of its younger, more socially active members. The solution? A text.
Over 35,000 people have signed up for PopeAlarm.com, a site which promises to alert users of the newly elected pope via text message.
"When the smoke goes up, you'll know what's going down," the site promises.
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The site also has a Twitter and Facebook. Users who sign up provide their email and mobile phone number. They can then decide whether they would like to be alerted when the new pope is elected via text, email, or both.
"You could be asleep, or busy doing something, and miss the 'Habemus Papam!" the site warns, providing clocks of the different time zones across the world in addition to the time in Rome. On Twitter, PopeAlarm has over 6,000 followers.
"The reaction has been fantastic and overwhelming," Kevin Cotter, FOCUS web director, told CNA earlier this week. "It's really exploded and caught on fire."
The tradition of lighting a fire to alert the world that a pope has been elected began 150 years ago, following Italy's attempt to take over Rome. Italy "captured Rome and scaled down the Papal States to what is known as Vatican City today," firstpope.com reports.
The next Pope to be elected, Pope Leo XII in 1829, was offended by the violence and decided to give his papal speech inside the Vatican as opposed to reciting it on the balcony of St. Peter's. But, still wanting the world to know that a Pope had been elected, it was decided that smoke would be an appropriate signal.
While that tradition is still carried out today, Cotter believes that the popularity of PopeAlarm reveals that faithful members of the Catholic church still have hope.
"There are a lot of Catholics out there that have a real optimism," he told CNA.
"The Church is made for greatness," he added. "We don't always live up to that greatness, but we aspire to it and we want to be led to further greatness to continue the work of John Paul II and Benedict XVI."
