MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — An Apple iPad which belonged to Pope Francis fetched $30,500 at auction on Tuesday, with proceeds going to a school for the poor in Uruguay.
"May you do something good with it," Uruguayan priest Gonzalo Aemilius recalled being told by the Argentina-born pope when he handed over the tablet. Aemilius in turn donated the iPad to the Francisco de Paysandu high school, located about 230 miles north of Montevideo.
School officials said that after a string of failed attempts to sell the iPad through auction houses Christie's and Sotheby's they were offering the iPad through local auction house Castells. The device carries the inscription "His Holiness Francisco. Servizio Internet Vatican, March 2013," and has a certificate signed by the Pope's personal secretary, Fabian Pedacchio Leaniz.
Castells said the winning bid was placed by telephone, but declined to disclose the buyer's identity or nationality.
Pope Francis has called the Internet a "gift from God," but confesses to being a "disaster" with technology.
Last year, a Harley-Davidson motorbike he had received as a gift fetched 241,500 euros ($257,681).
