The Pope, Now on Twitter, Posts His First Message ROME - Pope Benedict XVI sent his first Twitter message on Wednesday, saying, "Dear Friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart. The 85-year-old pontiff will be tweeting in eight languages under the handle @Pontifex, a Latin term for pope that means "bridge-builder." He clicked on his first tweet from a computer monitor in the Vatican hall where he holds his weekly audience. During the day, the pope will be responding via Twitter to questions that include the hashtag #Askpontifex. The Vatican has said that the pope will be using Twitter as a way of engaging with the Catholic Church's 1.2 billion followers. Benedict will be tweeting in Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish, and other languages are expected to be added. He will not be following anyone or retweeting. A Vatican official has said that papal tweets, as with everything written by the pope, will be part of the church's teachings, but would not be considered infallible.