Papal tweets from the papal iPad

Just a few hours ago, the pope tweeted (that's right, I said, "tweeted") the following message:

Dear Friends, I just launched News.va Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ! With my prayers and blessings, Benedictus XVI

Would you like a translation of that message in more than 140 characters? Here's the skinny: Pope Benedict XVI has launched a new Vatican portal (www.news.va) that will include the latest news from Vatican Radio and l’Osservatore Romano, from the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, from VIS, the Vatican’s Information Service, and from the Misna missionary news agency.

It will be available in English and Italian at the outset and expanded to other languages later, and it will offer audio and video streaming, high quality images and a twitter feed providing instant news headlines to smart phones and other mobile devices, according to a report by Vatican Radio.

To top it off, the pope launched the new site from his new iPad. That's one hip pope. You can watch it all unfold in the video clip above. Click HERE to go to the new Vatican portal.