Shortly after Pope Benedict XVI formally stepped down from the papacy, his tweets were deleted from the @pontifex Twitter account early Friday (Manila time). Visitors to the Twitter account that presently has 1,614,027 followers were greeted with zero tweets, with the name of the account changed to "Sede Vacante" (See of Rome is vacant).
A screenshot of the @Pontifex Twitter account as of 4 a.m. Friday, Manila time. The Vatican deleted Benedict XVI's tweets after he formally stepped down.
On the tweet stream was the message "
@Pontifex hasn't tweeted yet." Benedict stepped down from his post early Friday (Manila time), weeks after announcing he would do so due to health reasons. Meanwhile, the Vatican news site said the number of Twitter followers of @Pontifex went over the three million mark. It said this included the nine @pontifex Twitter accounts.
Pope Benedict XVI's last tweet
"The nine @pontifex Twitter accounts reached over three million followers just before 8pm on Thursday, when the accounts were officially made inactive as the Sede Vacante started,"
it said. It said the final boost in followers involved three languages including English, Spanish and Italian. Around 5:15 p.m., Benedict XVI sent his last tweet: "Thank you for your love and support. May you always experience the joy that comes from putting Christ at the center of your lives." "Now the next pope will decide on the future use of the Twitter handles," it said. The archive tweets of Benedict XVI can be found at
www.news.va/en/twitter_archive.
— LBG, GMA News 
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