The Pope on YouTube

Over the years popes have communicated with their people by letters and envoys, public speeches, foreign travels, radio, television and recently the Vatican website. Today a further step was taken, as the Vatican launched its own channel on the video websiteYouTube. Here videos of papal appearances, audiences and speeches will be posted so that people around the world can directly hear the Pope speak.

Mgr Claudio Maria Celli, who heads the Vatican's social communications office, said the pope explicitly approved of the online channel. He said he was
"a man of dialogue" who wanted to engage with people wherever they were.
Mgr Celli said the Vatican was launching the channel in part to have some
control over the pontiff's image, which he said was already being used on sites,
some respectful of the papacy and some not.

The Vatican plans to update the site http://uk.youtube.com/vatican daily,
with its messages available in Italian, German, English and Spanish.