Ilan Ben Zion is an AFP reporter and a former news editor at The Times of Israel.
Pope Benedict XVI (left) and President Shimon Peres (photo credit: Shimon Peres/Facebook)
President Shimon Peres on Tuesday welcomed Pope Benedict XVI to the twitterverse and greeted Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto, the Vatican’s new envoy to Jerusalem.
Israel’s most Twitter-hip ceremonial head of state (@PresidentPeres), also remarked that he has “the highest regard for His Holiness and I was glad to see that he started to tweet.”
Pope Benedict XVI (@Pontifex) opened the first official apostolic Twitter account this week. For the time being, however, the Supreme Pontiff has not responded to Peres’s tweet. The bishop of Rome will broadcast his first message to the twittersphere amid papal pomp and circumstance on December 12.
President Shimon Peres (right) greets incoming Vatican envoy to Israel Giuseppe Lazzarotto on Tuesday, December 4. (photo credit: Oren Nahshon/Flash90)
Peres welcomed Lazzarotto and praised the Vatican’s close relations with Israel, calling it “the best relationship between Israel and the Holy See in the last 2,000 years.”
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Nuncio Lazarotto, in turn, conveyed “cordial greetings from His Holiness Pope Benedict” to Peres and the people of Israel.
“The important thing is to have goodwill and look for what we have in common, what unites us and always find a common way to walk together,” Lazarotto added.
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