Pope Benedict XVI has posted his first tweet.

His @Pontifex account sent a message to his more than 660,000 followers on the social networking site.

He said 'Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart".

Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart.

— Benedict XVI (@Pontifex) December 12, 2012

It has already been re-tweeted thousands of times.

The Vatican had said that the first tweets would be answers to questions sent to the Pope on matters of faith.

The Pontiff will begin sending regular tweets sent in 8 languages including English, French, German, Arabic and Polish.

The Pope has already used the 140 character 'tweet' format when back in June 2011 he launched the Vatican information portal.