Catholic Church’s Communication in the Era of Bergoglio: Balancing Tradition and a New Leadership

Abstract

Nowadays, several pieces of research underline the international impact of Pope Francis’s messages and actions far beyond the Catholic community, especially thanks to the effects of his online presence. In the same year of his enthronement, Pope Francis was already the second most-followed leader of the world on Twitter—just behind former U.S. President Barack Obama—and he is currently the most active and followed religious leader on Instagram. But how can we understand and frame Bergoglio’s media influence today? How and why did Bergoglio end up becoming a religious celebrity? This paper aims to properly answer these questions by placing Pope Francis’s media resonance in a larger perspective, analyzing—together and separately—three elements that will allow us to include or exclude the reasons for his communicative success: 1. the doctrinal framework of the Church’s communication, 2. the Pope’s statements regarding the use of digital media, and 3. his personal communication abilities which combine with his new vision of the Church. The analysis of these elements allows us to highlight how Francis’s celebrity is not due to a renovation of the social doctrine of the Church but rather to a new personal understanding of Catholic leadership.