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The Catholic Church announced that Pope Leo XIV will not just lead the world's Catholics – he will also be a dedicated poster.
On Tuesday, the Dicastery for Communication — the Vatican's communications office — said that Pope Leo XIV will maintain an "active social media presence" on the Church's official papal accounts on X and Instagram.
The pope is already keeping that promise; he posted for the first time on Instagram on Tuesday, sharing images from his first few days at the helm of the Church. The photos include images from his first public address after his selection.
“Peace be with you all! This is the first greeting spoken by the Risen Christ, the Good Shepherd,” he wrote in his image caption. “I would like this greeting of peace to resound in your hearts, in your families, and among all people, wherever they may be, in every nation and throughout the world.”
The pope's accounts on X and Instagram — @Pontifex — have approximately 52 million followers, according to the Vatican.
Pope Leo was active on social media before he became the pope, and while most of his commentary is related to Catholicism, the Church, and Catholic initiatives, he has also offered some criticism of President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
In early February, Vance suggested that Christians are supposed to express love in a sort of tiered ranking, saying “that you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world.”
Pope Leo — then just Illinois-born Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost — took issue with that.
“JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others,” he shared on social media.
Vance indirectly responded to the comment after he received pushback on social media, challenging his critics to read up on the Catholic idea of ordo amoris, which translates to “order of love.”
A few days after that, Pope Leo shared an article from a Jesuit publication titled “Pope Francis’ letter, JD Vance’s ‘ordo amoris’ and what the Gospel asks of all of us on immigration,” which was critical of the Trump administration’s immigration policies and provided context for the tenet that Vance cited.
While Pope Leo may be the first pope to have been active on social media prior to taking his office, Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI were also frequent posters.
Pope Benedict, the successor to Pope John Paul II, was the first pope to use an official social media account. The official pope account was started on X in December 2012 back when the site was still Twitter.
"Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart,” Pope Benedict wrote in his opening Twitter post.
A few months later, Pope Francis was selected and took over the account. During his time as pope the Vatican launched an Instagram account.
Pope Francis was a regular poster as well. According to the Vatican, his posts were a “near-daily accompaniment throughout Pope Francis’ pontificate with short messages of an evangelical nature and exhortations in favor of peace, social justice, and care for creation.”
His social media posts in 2020 alone were viewed more than 27 billion times, according to the Vatican. Content posted by the Pope Francis will be archived on the Vatican's website, according to The Hill.
Following Pope Francis's passing, Prevost, an Illinois-born American who spent much of his adult life in Peru, was selected to replace him.
He was named a cardinal under Pope Francis in 2023, and was considered an ally of the former pope.
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