Israel’s President, Shimon Peres, welcomed Pope Benedict XVI to Twitter in appropriate fashion Monday: by tweeting at him.

“Your Holiness, welcome to Twitter. Our relations with the Vatican are at their best & can form a basis to further peace everywhere.”

On Monday the Vatican announced that the Pope would be starting a twitter handle, @pontifex, but that the only tactile interaction he’ll have with Twitter will be when he pushes the button on his first tweet himself on Dec. 12, otherwise most of the tweets will be written by aides, and he will sign off on them.

As of Tuesday morning the Pope had already attracted some 370,000 followers.

While meeting with Vatican officials on Tuesday President Peres said, ” There is an attempt by the heads of the three religions to make peace, peace amongst the people not just the governments. It’s a great contribution because religion has a spiritual impact upon people, which is no less important than material strength. It is peace that we need more than anything else, peace in faith and peace in our daily lives.”