Vatican City - Pope Benedict XVI received 56,191 e-mails in the first 48 hours that his address was operational, the Vatican said.
Of the e-mails received so far, the bulk have been messages of congratulations written in English - 30,844 at last count. Italian well-wishers were next on the list with 12,621, followed by 6,024 messages in Spanish, 2,961 in Benedict's native tongue, German, 2,286 in Portuguese and 1,455 in French.
Father George, of Suceava City, Romania wrote simply "habemus papam!" - Latin for "we have a pope."
Carmen, an employee at the University of Navarra, in Spain, told the new pope not to be afraid, and then asked for two favors: a prayer for her family and a rosary blessed by him "if it's not too much trouble."
Shane, a 17-year-old from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia added a final thought to his e-mail: "P.S. When are you coming to Canada?"
In English, the address is benedictxvi(at)vatican.va; in Italian, benedettoxvi(at)vatican.va; in Spanish, benedictoxvi(at)vatican.va; in French, benoitxvi(at)vatican.va; in German, benediktxvi(at) vatican.va; and in Portuguese, bentoxvi(at)vatican.va.
The Vatican released a handful of the messages on Friday - all of them positive and welcoming of Benedict's election Tuesday as the 265th leader of the Roman Catholic Church. It didn't release any negative comments, and blacked out the sender's e-mail address and last names.
"I'm not so naive as to think that you'll respond, much less read this, but I have to thank you for having accepted this fabulous job," Damien wrote in French.
Someone by the name of Kurt wrote from the Philippines that he hoped Benedict would pray for his family - that his father gets out of a court case he's in, that his mother can focus on her job, "and that I may find the right girl who will love me and care for me and live my life with me."
He added that he hoped the girl's initials were "AC." "I hope that you may show me signs that she's the one."