The Pope was A Social Media Powerhouse Thanks to a few Villanova Wildcats

A crack group of Villanova students are working to beef up and encourage the Pontiff’s profile online.

September 25, 2015

On the night of April 3, Melissa Connolly, a 21-12 months-old pupil from Villanova university, found herself atop the Palatine Hill outdoor the Colosseum in Rome, Italy, only some steps away from the sector’s greatest famous person. Following the tips of the extra skilled “paparazzi” around her, she placed her digicam. When the right moment arrived, along with her goal simply 15 toes away—boom!—she bought the shot she wanted. She quickly posted her picture of Pope Francis on-line—now not on her non-public fb page, but on the legit Vatican web page, information.va.

Connolly was once watching the normal excellent Friday procession of the way of the cross as a Vatican social media journalist, in Rome due to the Waterhouse domestic Institute’s Villanova internship software, which sends college students to work within the offices of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. The Council, which has a permanent team of workers of round two dozen people, is led by means of Thaddeus Jones, every other American (even supposing he graduated from Notre Dame, former big East rival of the Villanova Wildcats). Villanova sends two interns per semester, a part of a much bigger contingent of scholars that work in numerous parts of the Vatican. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” says Professor Bryan Crable, who directs the internship. “students get to experience issues the average person will never see, like non-public audiences with the Pope, the Sistine Chapel at evening, and even the Pauline Chapel, which is never open to the public. Our college students were on stage when [Francis’s predecessor] Pope Benedict XVI tweeted for the first time from his pill.”

Papal interns Melissa Connolly (left) and Tatum Murray (proper)

Junior Nicole O’Donnell was a social media intern closing fall. “It was extraordinary,” she says. That’s partly as a result of Pope Francis has made social media a important part of getting out his message. whereas it was Benedict who based news.va, “This Pope has taken it to any other stage,” says O’Donnell. “He’s doing an extraordinary job preaching an extraordinary message.” For O’Donnell, that message is deeply non-public: whereas in Rome, she was ready to prepare for her highly functioning autistic brother, Connor, to get a different blessing from Pope Francis, who has reached out to the disabled in remarkable type.

Villanova’s interns bring a a lot-wanted youthful standpoint to the Pope’s social media efforts—a standpoint the Pontifical Council encourages. the first thing Melissa Connolly did in Rome was once evaluate the entire Vatican’s social media channels and its site. The interns weigh in with ideas for the Pope’s private Twitter account (he’s @Pontifex, in case you’d like to enroll in his 7.3 million followers). They pushed laborious for hashtags, in order that the Vatican may better practice conversations spawned by using @Pontifex or information.va. They helped create digital truth excursions of the Vatican. The interns even got the Pontifical Council to start a #tbt sequence on Instagram. but there are limits to the Pope’s outreach. whereas Francis is moderately lively on Twitter, he does not have an authentic facebook page. “Twitter is extra of a platform to voice your thoughts,” says Connolly, “whereas fb is a place to maintain up with your pals.”

Some interns keep involved with the Vatican lengthy after their stints in Rome. Senior Lauren Dugan is masking the Pope’s talk over with for Philadelphia’s native Fox affiliate. O’Donnell is writing about and taking footage of his discuss with for each the Villanovan newspaper and information.va. There’s a very easy approach to apply her work, as well as the work of the other interns and, indeed, every bit of communications emanating from the Vatican. simply download the Pope App, which was once created quickly prior to Pope Benedict XVI resigned in February of 2013. You’ll in finding it close to other apps like “Pope Emoji,” which features line drawings of the Pope announcing issues like “I’m on my means!” as he rides the barrel of an airplane, and “Pope Selfie,” which allows you to take a selfie with the Pope regardless of the place in the world you might be. Neither of these is Vatican-sanctioned. Pope Francis has made many daring leaps into the longer term, but no one desires to see him make a soar too a long way.

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