Pope Francis' selfie with teenagers goes viral

Guess who’s jumped on to the selfie bandwagon? It’s Pope Francis! Even as the word finally got official recognition in the Oxford Dictionary Online, Pope Francis posed with a group of Italian teenagers to take a quick selfie, ensuring that the image went viral.

Pope Francis is known for his unconventional methods of interacting with Catholics who come in close contact with him. If you thought his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, was tech-savvy since he set up an official Twitter account for the Vatican, Pope Francis will make you believe that the Church has started to get with the times.

The Pope takes a selfie!

Pope Francis has also been known to pick up the phone and talk to people who write letters to him. Now him posing for this selfie with a group of teenagers has elicited some warm reactions from the Twitterverse. @Sapanv wrote, “Man this Pope’s got some swag,” while @FeliciaHerman_ wrote, “Pope Francis…. He’s cool man… He took a selfie.. Hahaha (sic)” Some of course were not amused. “Aren’t the words selfie, Pope, and youth in the same sentence kinda creepy?” wrote @colinmac7.
The selfie is essentially an act of photographing oneself or a group of people with a webcam or a smartphone. It’s as simple as extending your arm and taking your own picture. The word was formally inducted in the Oxford Dictionary’s online version last week and what better way to have the word put into use in popular culture than by the Pope himself? Too bad he didn’t RT it from the official Pontifex account.

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(Cover image credit: Reuters)