VATICAN – Following his arrival to Twitter, the Pope has outlined plans to double down on his efforts to reach young people by skipping this year’s Christmas Mass ceremony.
Pope Benedict XVI usually delivers the annual ceremony in front of thousands of devoted followers, but said he would “give it a miss” this year as he looked to target the young and lazy demographic to the Catholic Church.
Speaking at the Vatican, he described his intention to spend the time away from the yearly celebration of the birth of Christ to listen to Bob Marley while “smoking a blunt or two”.
Fresh approach
Soon after joining the social networking site earlier this month the Pontiff has continued to reach out to young Christians of today and broke the news of his decision with the message “So nt gng to mass this xmas totes bored right nw :-( might watch twilight #teamedward :-)”
According to Church sources Pope Benedict has is working through a number of new ways to attract college-aged followers and “now realises that to achieve this goal he must do much less church stuff.”
Calling the Pope’s adoption of the social networking site a “good first step”, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said missing this year’s Christmas gathering was the kind of move the head of the Catholic faith needed to make to truly connect with young people on a level they could relate to.
“Twitter was just the beginning of many planned initiatives,” he added after revealing that Benedict has spent the time he would have been preparing for his speech actually watching movies on Netflix.
Other outreach exercises are thought to include giving a long awaiting thumbs up to premarital sex and “in the new year his Holiness plans to make an appearance on the Daily Show.”
The Pope is also considering moving away from Catholicism “and into one of the new age spiritual movements the kids are always talking about.”
‘Speaking our language’
If the move to miss out on Christmas Mass proved a success, Bertone hinted the Pope may stop going to Church services altogether.
Under such plans a replacement bishop would lead services while the Pope slept in, ate cereal in his bathrobe and didn’t wash until it was dark outside.
The news has received a positive reaction with young Catholics praising the Pope’s new direction.
“Dude I heard the pope was skipping Christmas Mass…that is so cool!” Commented Micheal Taylor who described himself as into the whole Jesus as our saviour thing, but not big on waking up earlier than noon on a Sunday.
“First Twitter and now this. He’s really started is speaking to what if believe in.”
“Which is nothing in particular.”
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