Despite once claiming to be a technological dinosaur, Pope Francis has expanded his social media presence by joining Instagram, launching the new account with a picture of himself knelt in worship alongside the caption “pray for me”.
Using the moniker Franciscus, the pope has joined the photo-sharing app
to mark the third ....
He is already a well-established social media user, tweeting regularly
under the handle @Pontifex to more than 27 million followers across
several accounts in different languages.
The pope tweeted news of his Instagram debut: "I am beginning a new
journey, on Instagram, to walk with you along the path of mercy and the
tenderness of God."
Up to now only two pictures have been posted on the pope’s Twitter page, suggesting Francis may need to become more accustomed to the selfie if he is to prosper on Instagram.
“Instagram will help recount the papacy through images, to enable all
those who wish to accompany and know more about Pope Francis’s
pontificate to encounter his gestures of tenderness and mercy,” said
Dario Viganò, the Vatican’s prefect of the secretariat for
communications.
“We will choose photographs from the photographic service of
L’Osservatore Romano ... In this way we can show those aspects of
closeness and inclusion that Pope Francis lives every day.”
The Instagram launch is thought to be part of a Vatican social media strategy to engage with younger people around the world.
Franciscus has racked up thousands of followers since its first post,
but the account has some way to go to catch up to the site’s most
popular users – the pop stars Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift currently
stand at about 70 million followers each.
Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s chief executive and co-founder, met Francis
at the Vatican last month, and said they had discussed “the power of
images to unite people across different cultures and languages”.
Francis has previously described the internet as a “gift from God” and hosted his own Google Hangouts from the Vatican.
The pope has also met the former Google chief executive, Eric Schmidt, and the head of Apple, Tim Cook, at the Vatican.
Source: The Gurdian
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