Pope Culture: Pope Francis’ social media stardom and much-adored pop culture footprint

On a February evening in 2013, Beyoncé headlined one of the greatest Super Bowl halftime shows of all time as she reunited with Destiny’s Child. The Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year was ‘Selfie’, and people still relied on Vine for a laugh. It seemed like a new dawn for the digital age as dog memes were all the rage, and we thought adding rugged borders to our Instagram photos made us look cool. The concept of a social media influencer was alien, and teens were still in the throes of the Twilight franchise. However, for a fortnight in this year of amateur pop culture trends, everyone’s eyes were fixed on a rather unlikely place — the Vatican.

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Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation on February 11, 2013, citing a ‘lack of strength of mind and body’ due to his age. It was the first resignation by a Pope without any external pressure since Pope Celestine V’s in 1294. Everyone was busy looking at the copper chimney of the Sistine Chapel in anticipation of the smoke turning white, signaling the election of a new pope. And turn white it did! On March 13, 2013 the world had a new pope — Pope Francis. 

Despite being a leader of a religious institution like the Roman Catholic Church, a position that seems intimidating and out of arm’s reach to the common man, he seemed to demystify his message about faith through layers of relatability. From sharing personal anecdotes about his time as a bouncer in a nightclub in Buenos Aires to working as a janitor, Pope Francis used his affable nature to woo people to the Church. And it worked! Within a year of his papacy, he became Time magazine’s ‘Person of the Year’ and graced the cover of Rolling Stone. 

The cover of Time magazine’s Person of the Year issue, featuring Pope Francis, is pictured in this December 11, 2013 handout photo.
| Photo Credit:
Reuters

He once said, “To paint the pope as some sort of a Superman, a star, is offensive. The pope is a man who laughs, cries, sleeps calmly, and has friends as everyone else. A normal person.”

Tryst with Minimalism

For a generation emerging from the troubles of a recession and picketing lines of the Occupy Wall Street movement, his rejection of wealth by choosing to live in a Vatican guesthouse instead of the papal palace and driving around in a donated 1984 manual transmission Renault instead of the standard papal Mercedes resonated with their understanding of the world.

To a young generation wrestling the evils of overconsumption, his decision to ditch the mozetta, a red (or white) elbow-length cape worn over a surplice, tickled their fancy. Esquire magazine named him ‘The Best Dressed Man of 2013’ as he understood that “menswear is meant to express the character of the man wearing the clothes”.

In this photo provided by the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, Pope Francis holds a green parrot named Amore that was offered to him by his owner, Francesco Lombardi, during his weekly general audience in St. Peter square at the Vatican on January 29, 2014.
| Photo Credit:
AP

Selfie spoils and social media

People were quick to warm up to his personality, and they soon heralded him as a social media star by requesting him to pose for selfies — he obliged.

This handout picture released by the Vatican press office shows Pope Francis posing for a selfie prior a meeting with the participants of the Sixth World Congress of Pontifical Foundation Scholas Occurrentes on May 29, 2016 in Vatican.
| Photo Credit:
AFP

Soon enough, he mastered his social media strategy and now boasts 28 million followers on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). During the pandemic, X (formerly Twitter) users capitalised on his penchant for pop culture by turning him into a meme.

They used the website’s tiled image format to make it look like Pope Francis is holding various objects with sincere reverence, including Simba, Baby Yoda, and the One Ring. The original photo of the Pope was taken in Brazil in 2013, when he celebrated Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady Aparecida. In it, he holds aloft a wafer of sacramental bread.

From making heart signs through a helicopter to his followers on the ground, letting kids play with his skull caps, and welcoming them to occupy his throne on a public stage he captured the imagination of millions across the globe. He embraced humour to advance faith. In an interview with TV2000, he said he prayed to lord asking him to grant him a sense of humour, “A sense of humor is uplifting; it helps you see the provisional element of life and take things with the lightness of a liberated spirit. It is a human attitude, but it is the attitude closest to God’s grace,” he said. Backing this claim up, he wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times in 2024 titled ‘There is faith in humour,’ in which he quipped, “The best thing to do in front of a mirror is to laugh at ourselves. It is good for us.”

In this image taken from TV footage taken on October 26, 2013, a young boy, no name available, sits in the chair of Pope Francis as he delivers his speech during an audience with families in St. Peter’s Square gathered for the Pontifical Council for the Family’s plenary assembly, at the Vatican . The boy, part of a group of children sitting around the stage where the pontiff was delivering his message to families, played around Pope Francis as he continued delivering his speech, occasionally patting the boy’s head.
| Photo Credit:
AP

Outreach

His progressive attitude towards issues concerning women and the LGBT+ community marked a shift in the position of the Catholic church, which helped pull diverse people into the folds of Christianity. Arguably, the most talked about moment of his papacy is his reply to a question on gay priests at the Vatican, “If a person is gay and seeks the Lord and has good will, well, who am I to judge them?”

A group of Argentine newspapers, from left top row, Buenos Aires Herald, Clarin, La Nacion, below row from left, Pagina 12, Ole and Tiempo Argentino, show front page photos and headlines of the newly-elected Pope, Pope Francis, as the newspapers are published on March 14, 2013.
| Photo Credit:
AP

While he is a full-blown celebrity in Latin America due to his Argentinian heritage, he persisted with his outreach efforts — in November 2015, Pope Francis released a progressive rock album titled ‘Wake Up! Music Album with His Words and Prayers’.

Relentless in his approach to appease people across divides, he even embraced the TED stage and delivered an 18-minute long talk titled ‘Why the only future worth building includes everyone.’

The Pope like every other man in your life had the sports bug — he was a card-carrying member of the athletic association where he played basketball as a child and enjoyed cheering for the football team of Club Atlético San Lorenzo de Almagro, an Argentine professional sports club based in the Boedo neighbourhood of Buenos Aires.

This handout picture released on December 18, 2013 by the Vatican press office shows Pope Francis holding the jersey of San Lorenzo’s Argentinian football club as he poses with team members after his general audience at St. Peter’s square at the Vatican.
| Photo Credit:
AFP

To err is human, and even the Pope who brought a shift in the highest echelons of Christianity erred. His mistakes while dealing with the sex abuse crisis in Catholic churches across the globe will stand out like a sore thumb. However, in a world caught up in a polarisation crisis, for a brief decade, the Pope seemed to be on the people’s side.