THE POPE: TEXTING THE GOOD WORD

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By Malcolm Beith

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Feeling out of touch with your faith? Pope John Paul II's offering a remedy: a daily text message to America's most tech-savvy Roman Catholics. For 30 cents a message, Verizon Wireless is offering subscribers a "Thought of the Day" from the pope himself. "He's pretty dexterous," jokes Jeffrey Nelson, a Verizon spokesman. (The messages are lifted from speeches and homilies--no actual papal typing is involved.) The Irish, British and Italians have been able to subscribe to the service since last year. The question is whether young Americans--who remain slower than the rest of the world in taking to text messages--will embrace the idea. David Early, spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is a believer. "Why would this not work? Young people today are tech-savvy and they are looking for a deeper relationship with their spirituality."

Signing on is as easy as praying: users need only send a text message reading pope on to the address "24444," and the next day at noon they will begin receiving a daily message of prayer and guidance. (Sample: "May Mary, Mother of Hope, obtain the joy of hope so that Christ's presence in moments of trial will change our sadness to joy.") But to unsubscribe, users have to send a message worthy of excommunication: POPE OFF.

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