Modernizing the Papacy? Understanding Pope Francis’s Approach to Using Email

Although His Holiness Pope Francis might have a private or official email address, he does maintain a publicly listed email address. People who wish to contact him by modern means aren’t relegated to snail mail as he has an activesocial media feed .

Contact the Pope Through the Mail

For contacting Pope Francis through the postal service, the Vatican provides this address:

His Holiness, Pope Francis
Apostolic Palace
00120 Vatican City

Don’t add “Italy” to the address. The Vatican is a separate political entity from Italy.

The Pope Doesn’t Use Email

Despite his lack of email accessibility, Pope Francis sees modern communication options as beneficial. WhenTim Cook, Apple’s CEO , visited the Vatican in January 2016, Pope Francis released a message titled Communication and Mercy: A Fruitful Encounter, for the 50th World Day of Social Communications . In it, he said that the internet, text messages, and social networks are “gifts from God.”

Giulio Origlia / Getty Images

Other Popes in the Information Age

Unlike their current successor, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II had email addresses: benedictxvi@vatican.va and john_paul_ii@vatican.va , respectively. Both might have had other private email addresses inside the Vatican, as well.

Karol Józef Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II in 1978 before people used email widely and practically. Thefirst email had been written seven years previous to his ascendancy, but few people outside the computer programming field knew computer networks existed. Yet, John Paul II became the first email-savvy pontiff in history and the first to be canonized in centuries.

In late 2001, the pope apologized for injustices committed by the Roman Catholic Church in Oceania via email . The Holy Father would have preferred to visit the Pacific nations and deliver his words of penitence in person, but email made for an effective second-best choice.

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