ROME: Leo XIV is now active as pope on the online platforms X and Instagram, German Press Agency (dpa) reported.
On the new Instagram account “pontifex,“ the only entry so far consists of 17 photos from his first days in office and the first words spoken by the new head of the Catholic Church from the United States on Thursday shortly after his election on the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica, “Peace be with you all” in seven different languages.
In the first few minutes, the number of followers immediately increased by the thousands.
Leo himself – whose birth name is Robert Francis Prevost – does not follow anyone. The Vatican announced that it is the “only official account of the Holy Father on the platform” Instagram.
His predecessor, Francis, was active there under his Latin name Franciscus and had more than 10 million followers at last count. The Vatican stated that the posted content should remain accessible as an in memoriam archive.
On X, the first US pope in the history of the Church took over the @Pontifex accounts in nine different languages, which were initially used by the German pope Benedict XVI since 2012 and, after his resignation, by Francis.
Altogether, there are 52 million followers. Since Francis’ death, the account had been inactive.
The new pope had a Twitter account under the name @drprevost since 2011, where he published more than 400 posts, including criticism of the policies of US President Donald Trump.
