The brief messages will be sent by the Italian telephone company TIM to those clients who request it, thanks to the cooperation of the Vatican Press Office. The service in Italy costs 15 euro cents ($0.16).
The service, which starts in Italian, will soon be available in other countries in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Polish.
«The initiative to spread the Pope’s thought through mobile phones did not come directly from us, but from people’s requests, who increasingly feel the need to receive ‘spiritual advice’ from the Pontiff,» Joaquín Navarro-Valls, director of the Vatican Press Office, told journalists.
The first trial message, sent Tuesday, was taken from the encyclical «Evangelium Vitae» and said that the Gospel of the love of God for man, the Gospel of the person, and the Gospel of life are inseparable.
