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Pope Francis

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About

Pope Francis is the 266th Pope of the Catholic Church. He has obtained notoriety online for what some people consider to be a more liberal approach to Catholicism than in the past.

Background

Born in 1936 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Pope Francis was originally named Jorge Mario Bergoglio.[1] He was first ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1969, and was elected to the papacy in 2013 after Pope Benedict resigned.[2] He is the first pope in over 1000 years to not be from Europe, and the first to take the name Francis, after the Jesuit saint St. Francis of Assisi.[3]

Since his electiion, Francis has continued his work in advocating for action to fight climate change, poverty, and the death penalty, while still maintaining Catholic doctrine on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage.[4] Pope Francis is often lauded for his progressive stance, respecting interfaith dialogues, and for leading an ascetic, humble lifestyle. However, the Vatican often claims that his proclamations are often taken out of context by the Western media in order to promote him as more liberal and less bound by the traditional strictures of Catholicism.[5]

Online History

Pope Francis has referred to the Internet as “a gift from God.”[6] His initial election, during the 2013 Conclave, was the first Papal Conclave to exist in the time of social media, and therefore made a large impression throughout the Internet. The conclave lasted two full days, and over 130,000 people signed up for a website called Pope Alarm,[7] which promised to text them the results when the new Pope was elected. In addition, thousands more people signed up for a “Fantasy Pope”, in the style of fantasy baseball] When the Pope was elected, the Twitter profile @Pontifex tweeted “HABEMUSPAPAMFRANCISCUM” and received over 33,000 retweets, but the tweet was later deleted when the feed was rebooted for Pope Francis.[9]

Pontifex Twitter Feed

@Pontifex is the official Twitter account of the Pope which serves as the official communication line between The Vatican and the Catholic community at large. It was originally launched under Pope Benedict XVI in December 2012 and re-launched following the pontification of Pope Francis in March 2013. Shortly after the election of Pope Francis on March 13th, the Twitter handle was restored from “Sede Vacante” indicating the vacancy of the papacy to Pontifex. Pope Francis’ first tweet read “Habemus papam franciscum,” which translates to “we have a new pope [Francis].”

Pope Selfie

On August 29th, 2015, an Italian twitter user named FabioMRagona became the first known person to ever take a selfie with a standing pope.[10] The selfie, which included the user, Pope Francis, and two others, received 230 retweets and 195 favorites. The practice has become frequent as users, especially children, take photographs of the pope with cell phones. The search term “Pope Selfie” produces hundreds of such photos on Twitter,[11] and has been documented by Mashable,[12] Good Morning America,[13] and the Washington Post.[14] On September 22nd, 2015, Mashable reported that the Pope’s security detail on his trip to the US would not allow bystanders to use selfie-sticks to take photographs of the pope.[15]

The Pope’s Visit to Cuba and the United States

In September of 2015, the Pope Visited both Cuba and the United States, countries for which he had helped to negotiate a defrosting of official relations. On his visit to Cuba he addressed the Castro family, and during his visit to the United States, he planned to address both a joint session of the United States Congress and the 2015 meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.[16] During his visit, the social media discussion was incredibly high, with over 1.6 million uses of the word Pope being used on Twitter alone, at a rate of about 500,000 per day, up from a normal volume of 5,000-10,000 per day.[17]

Twitter Emoji

To celebrate the Pope’s visit, Twitter unveiled four different hashtag-based emoji for use during his visit. Any user who tweeted the hashtags #popeinUS, #popeinDC, #popinNYC, and #popinPhilly would automatically see a celebratory emoji appear next to the hashtag. [18]



After the first 24 hours of the pope’s visit, when the Pope was in Washington, the hashtag for DC was used over 263,000 times.[19]

Search Interest



External References


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