Pope John Paul II to Join Facebook

Want to be friends with a deceased pope? Continuing efforts to become more involved in social media, officials say the Vatican is launching a Facebook page next week to promote Pope John Paul II's beatification, which will take place on May 1st. The page will apparently link to video highlights of John Paul's 27-year papal run. Like so many other religious organizations, the Vatican has joined Facebook in hope of spreading its evangelical mission. It may also be looking for general support from around the world in light of recent sex-abuse and other papal scandals. The page will go up shortly after a new Vatican Web portal and news aggregator launches on Easter—the contents of which are designed to be tweeted and blogged about.