The Vatican used text messaging and e-mail to update the press on the medical condition of Pope John Paul II, reports Silicon. The 2,000 year-old church employed new technology in order to meet the demands of real time news. Only fifteen minutes after the Pope’s passing on Saturday, the Vatican had sent journalists an SMS message informing them of the news.

Journalists purchased state-of-the-art handheld computers, at the suggestion of the Vatican, which they used to communicate with church officials. Upon the pope’s passing, the computers were e-mailed a simple Word document, reading: “The Holy Father died this evening at 21:37 in his private apartment.”

Television viewers across the globe were informed of the pope’s death even before the thousands of people gathered outside his apartment in St. Peter’s Square in Rome. Archbishop Leonardo Sandri informed the crowd minutes later, and they responded with a long round of applause – an Italian custom, which was captured on live TV.

The events surround the death of John Paul II stand in stark contrast to the secrecy surrounding previous pontificates. In 1963, for example, the Vatican kept Pope John XXIII’s inoperable stomach cancer secret until days before his death. John Paul II himself was a proponent of information technology. In February, he wrote a letter in which he encouraged the church to use the internet to spread its message, saying the “mass media can and must promote justice and solidarity.”