Francis, a Pope for the Internet age

As an at-times unwitting star on social media, Pope Francis knew how to exploit the internet to preach the gospel, broadening the Church's appeal while modernising its communications.

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Yet the head of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics, who died on Monday, likewise regularly warned against the scourge of disinformation, and in recent years took aim at the possible perils of artificial intelligence.

It was his predecessor Benedict XVI who created the papal X presence @pontifex in 2012, at a time when the now-Elon Musk owned site was known as Twitter, in a bid at reaching younger people.

Within months of its creation Benedict stepped down and Francis took over, immediately striking social media gold.

The handle boasts a total of 50 million followers across its accounts in nine languages, among them English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Polish, German and Arabic.

Even its account in long-dead Latin boasts one million followers.