I am similarly pleased. However Telegram has had this functionality for years ! We also use it for broadcasting to large groups in the parish as well, without resorting to social media. It's been moderately successful and there's only a *little* bit of weirdness there.
A Catch-22 in the Priestin' World:
A lot of priests hand out their personal cellphone numbers. I don't like this, because I have a hard enough time keeping track of phone calls on one centralized phone in the office. Can't handle two "business" lines.
And yet, I'd not be opposed to receiving texts. Except texts are awful for privacy, namely because there isn't any (and only nominally so with iMessage). The things people communicate to a priest are often sensitive: privacy should be guaranteed, rather than placing it at the whimsy of the NSA's full access to SMS/MMS.
I forced my family and friends on Signal years ago, but it was never an option for parish contacts because... then they'd have a voice number to call me at, which would guarantee disorganization and non-returned phone calls.
Until today. UNTIL TODAY.
How many people will I be able to strong-arm on to secure coms? That remains to be seen, but at least it's an actual possibility today. Thanks nostr:npub1n03pvydrg9pxay2xy479g9u7ytgh3wmagyrwy37a70js0ductf4sudh0ky.
Discussion
Yeah, due to its closed source nature and their weird roll your own encryption, I trust Telegram about as far as I can physically throw it.