Pope Poses Promptly in Personally-Pointed Photograph

Is it possible for an entire religion to jump the shark? I ask because on Wednesday the Pope posed with some very excited-looking young people (especially in comparison to the Pope) for a selfie that was then posted to Twitter. Yup. That happened.

Here’s the tweet with the original photo attached:

Autoscatto papale (col cellulare) #PapaFrancesco pic.twitter.com/nCvuxLdmwD

— Fabio M. Ragona (@FabioMRagona) August 29, 2013

“Selfie” might be a silly word, but it was just added to the Oxford English Dictionary and now that the Pope is posing for them I think it’s as legitimate a word as it’s going to get. Although… “selfie” was added to the OED at the same time as “twerk” so… how long before a Papal Twerking video?

Shake it, Francis.

(Twitter via The Verge, image via Fabio M Ragona)

Meanwhile in related links

• Following the Pope on Twitter can earn you time off in Purgatory. Sigh.
• The Vatican has opinions on Batman
• The old Pope thought he was better at Twitter than Justin Bieber