Pope Francis to join Instagram on third anniversary of election

Pontiff to use the handle Franciscus in attempt to use social medium to spread Catholic message to younger generation

The Guardian, Agence France-Presse in Vatican City, 17 March 2016

Pope Francis at the end of his weekly general audience in Saint Peter’s
Square in Rome. Photograph: Stefano Rellandini/Reuters

Pope Francis will make his Instagram debut this week, joining the likes of Justin Bieber and Cristiano Ronaldo on the image-sharing forum, under the handle Franciscus, the Vatican has confirmed.

The pontiff chose Saturday as the date for his debut on the celebrity-dominated social medium 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 9 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 Francis 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 said: “It was by far one of the most memorable experiences of my life!”

Francis joined Twitter 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.

Some have been aimed firmly at practising Catholics, such as: “The sacraments, especially confession and the Eucharist, are privileged places of encountering Christ.” Wednesday brought a typical example:

As we exit the confessional, we will feel his strength which gives new life and restores ardor to the faith. After confession we are reborn.

— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) March 16, 2016

The pope has also used the medium to react to global events, or voice his views on the social issues of the day. Francis also tweets 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 the Google boss Eric Schmidt and Apple chief Tim Cook.