After tweeting his farewell, the entire Twitter history of Pope Benedict XVI has been deleted today from the @Pontifex account.
No official statement has yet explained why Benedict's past tweets were deleted. The name on the account has also been changed to "Sede Vacante," which in Italian means "vacant seat." To read the old tweets, there's a link to the Vatican's official news website, where they are all stored.
At the same time, and contrary to what was reported before, the account will not immediately be shut down now that Benedict has retired, according to Monsignor Paul Tighe, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.
"During the period between today and the election of new pope the account will be inactive," he wrote in an email to Forbes, "not shut down."
The next pope, who hasn't been chosen yet, will decide whether to continue using Twitter.