Pope surfs Web from laptop

VATICAN CITY, Italy, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- Pope Benedict XVI is Internet savvy and regularly uses e-mail and surfs the Web from his laptop computer, Vatican officials say.

"He sends personal e-mails and greatly appreciates all the new technologies," Monsignor Claudio Maria Celli said Thursday during a conference on Web communication held at the Vatican.

The pope, however, does not have a papal e-mail address and cannot reply personally to the millions of e-mail messages that arrive at the Vatican, Celli said. "But he certainly prays for all those who write to him," Celli told ANSA in a story published Saturday.

The four-day Vatican conference, which ends Sunday, aims to educate senior bishops from throughout Europe about the Internet. Representatives from Internet companies such as Facebook, Google and Wikipedia attended the conference, the Italian news agency reported.