Pope Francis joins Instagram

OndoReporter | Pope Francis joins Instagram

Pope Francis made his Instagram debut on
Saturday, joining the likes of Justin Bieber and
Cristiano Ronaldo on the image-sharing forum
under the handle Franciscus, the Vatican
confirmed Wednesday.

The pontiff, 79, shared a photo of himself
praying while kneeling. The caption: "pray for
me," which the pope shared in nine different
languages.

The date for the pontiff's debut on the
celebrity-dominated social medium was chosen
by the 79-year-old himself as it marks the
third anniversary of his inauguration as the
leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics.



The move represents the latest plank of a
Vatican social media strategy designed to
ensure Francis's message reaches a maximum
number of believers and non-believers across
the world with particular focus on the younger
generation.

Francis is already a major player on Twitter.
Under the @Pontifex handle he tweets in nine
languages, including Latin, with the English
account followed by nearly nine million people
and the Spanish one by more than 11 million.
The move to join Instagram has been
anticipated for some time as it is now bigger
and faster-growing than Twitter with some 400
million users worldwide.

Kevin Systrom, Instagram's CEO and co-
founder, met the pontiff at the Vatican last
month, later revealing they had discussed "the
power of images to unite people across
different cultures and languages."

In a post on his own Instagram account,
Systrom also said: "It was by far one of the
most memorable experiences of my life!"
Francis joined the Twittersphere four days
after his March 2013 election with what has
become his trademark appeal to believers to
"pray for me."

The central importance of prayer has been a
recurring theme of the tweets that have
followed, at a rate of a little under one a day.
Some have been barely comprehensible to non-
Catholics such as: "The Sacraments, especially
Confession and the Eucharist, are privileged
places of encountering Christ."

But it has not all been theology. He has also
used the medium to react to global events like
Typhoon Hiayan/Yolanda, or voice his views
on the social issues of the day.

Francis has also demonstrated a nice line in
homespun tips for living, such as: "I cannot
imagine a Christian who does not know how
to smile."

To date however his Twitter feed has been
short on images with only two photographs
and one short video clip uploaded.

And given that he nearly always wears the
same clothes and spends most of his time in
one place, generating an interesting photo
stream for Instagram will present some
challenges for his media team.

On the upside, Francis does have a steady flow
of interesting visitors, he gets to some remote
places and he does have exclusive access to
the artistic treasures of the Vatican museums.
Francis's interest in the Internet was
underlined in January when he spoke out
against online trolls. He has also hosted major
figures in the new digital economy, including
Google boss Eric Schmidt and Apple supremo
Tim Cook.