You might think the Vatican would be busy lately, what with all the denouncing of sex crimes against children in Ireland they should be doing. But they don’t appear to be too busy to waste all of our time on dumb shit. One example is pope2you.net, a lame attempt to get younger people into the Pope’s fold.

You won’t get an email saying Pope Benedict added you as a friend and you can’t “poke” him or write on his wall, but the Vatican is still keen to use the networking site Facebook to woo young people back to church.

A new Vatican website, www.pope2you.net, has gone live, offering an application called “The pope meets you on Facebook,” and another allowing the faithful to see the Pope’s speeches and messages on their iPhones or iPods.

I can’t poke the Pope? How lame is that? How about kicking him in the shin with my pointy boots for what he said about condoms spreading AIDS? Joking aside, if the Vatican wants to appeal to “young believers”, why not learn how the technology works and really use it to its full potential? A favorite blog of mine, ReadWriteWeb, reports that they’ve tried out the app and its pretty much snoozeville:

The Facebook app, which is currently loading very slowly, is also not exactly the most groundbreaking app either. Facebook users will be able to send and receive 20 different virtual postcards of the Pope, with texts available in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish (with Latin being conspicuously absent here). According to the app’s description, installing it will allow you to “Spread friendship with the Pope and become a witness of Christ in the world through the web.”

Sounds exhilarating.

What’s next? The Pope on Twitter?

Via /WashPo and ReadWriteWeb