How Pope Francis Hit 40million Twitter Followers

By Andrew Young-

His twitter page, spread across  accounts in nine languages, puts the pope on par with  U.S President Donald Trump (40.3 million followers), but behind  Barack Obama ( 95 million followers).

 According to the Vatican,   nine million new Twitter users have followed the various @pontifex accounts in the last year alone.

Pope Francis would be considered an unlikely man to hit such high numbers. especially as  there is hardly anything exciting about his tweets.

. Francis additionally has five million followers on Instagram, a sign that he is very popular among Catholics. The pope generally sends religious tweets which would only be appealing to followers of his religion. The pope has always been a respect man in the world because of his perceived level of wisdom and purity, though unless one follows him behind every close door he goes, it is impossible to tell how pure he really is.  Viewed as a leader in the Catholic world, pope Francis has political interests and presents a calming influence on harrowing world events when they occur.

It is not known with certainty whether he tweets messages himself, although the likely scenario is that one of his trusted aids tweets the pope’s chosen message to his followers. Over 1 billion Roman Catholics exist in the world today, most get inspiration from the pope who has never been caught committing anytime of scandal or inappropriate behaviour. However, all it may take is for a number of catholic priests to ask their congregation to follow the respected pope on twitter.  Over many years, he would be bound to hit this figure, especially with his funds and influence. Well done to him, though.

Many Catholic priests the world over have for decades been a let down to the Catholic faith, exposed for one form of sexual indecency or the other. The pope will have nothing to do with such degenerate individuals, his words falling on the deaf ears of those priests who crave the platform to exploit vulnerable women.  A glance at the pope’s tweets of late offer nothing that would  inspire , enlighten, or strengthen those who rad his tweets, except for the many Catholics who may be following him on tweeter. What they get from him different from anything other religious leaders could say, is anybody’s guess. Prayer and forgiveness has been one of his most prevailing subjects, but every priest must surely talk about this on their podiums.

Pope Francis  recently spoke against the death penalty, stating God to be the only ”guarantor” of life. His views would have struck a chord with his believers, but not with advocates of the death penalty who believe it should be practiced everywhere.

The pope has also spent time with prisoners from time to time,  but prisoners are not likely to follow his tweeting. Nearly two weeks ago, two prisoners escaped during lunch with the pope at the Basilica of Petronio. Perhaps it is simply the fact many of his followers adore his highly placed position.