( CNN ) -- For the first time in nearly 600 years , a reigning pope has resigned . And in what might also be a landmark event , Twitter was not flooded with jokes or parody accounts when the announcement was made two weeks ago . On February 11 @ davewiner tweeted , `` Perfect storm for Pope jokes . Since he 's not dead no one can complain 'You 're being insensitive . ' '' But in the days that followed , not much surfaced . It was so odd that tweets like this were more common : `` Did I miss the memo about no Pope jokes ? '' tweeted @ NouveauBroke . Although a parody account , @ RetiredPopeXVI , did appear , it only has 577 followers and sent out a paltry five tweets . That all changed on Thursday when Pope Benedict XVI slipped off his red loafers and officially became pope emeritus . Curiously , the Vatican also deleted all 39 of his tweets from the official @ pontifex Twitter account . ( They are archived here . ) And slowly , the jokes began to surface . Here are a handful we found humorous . Mobile users : Click here to see the Storify . .
Pope officially retires Thursday as he deletes his Twitter history . Twitter users were uncommonly silent until the retirement was official . @ Vatican account gained 500 new followers after 100 days .