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Pope Francis: Let’s All Give Up Trolling for Lent, OK?

It’s probably easier than giving up sweets during the Catholic Church’s holy season.

Most Catholics like to give up sweets, booze, or caffeine during Lent, the 40-day season that leads up to Easter. This year, however, Pope Francis has suggested they give up insulting people on social media instead. Lent “is a time to give up useless words, gossip, rumors, tittle-tattle and speak to God on a first-name basis,” he said to a crowd of tens of thousands in St. Peter’s Square on Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. “We live in an atmosphere polluted by too much verbal violence, too many offensive and harmful words, which are amplified by the internet... Today, people insult each other as if they were saying ‘Good Day.’” Francis joined Twitter in 2012 and shares pearls of wisdom with his 18 million followers, whose responses often descend into nasty battles with each other.