Pope Benedict to start tweeting in Latin on Sunday

Vatican City - A month after first landing on the Twitter micro-blogging website, on Sunday Pope Benedict XVI will start posting messages in Latin, the Vatican said.

In a bid to expand the Catholic Church’s reach, the pontiff already has Twitter accounts opened in eight languages: English, Italian, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Polish and Arabic.

The handle for his latest account is @Pontifex_ln. On the profile page, Twitter is translated in Latin as "pagina publica breviloquentis." Latin is the official language of the Catholic Church.

The new account, opened on Thursday, had over 3,150 followers as of noon on Friday (1100 GMT). In English, the pope has over 1.4 million followers.//DPA