Pope Francis' Official Account Likes Photos Of Brazilian Models Dressed Minimally, The Vatican Holds An Investigation

Pope Francis (Instagram / @ fransiscus)

JAKARTA - The Vatican said it was seeking an explanation from Instagram after Pope Francis' official account liked a photo of a scantily clad Brazilian model. The model is Natalia Garibotto. He uploaded the photo in early October. The photo was then favored by Pope Francis' official account, @franciscus.

The photo is captioned with a devil horn emoji, along with a suggestive caption: I can teach you a thing or two. Launching The Guardian, Friday, November 20, it is not clear when the photo of Natalia Garibotto gets a 'like' from the verified account of Pope Francis. But the likes were still visible on November 13, before finally being canceled the following day.

COY Co, the management company of Garibotto, made the most of the publicity and re-uploaded the photo on its Instagram account saying the company had "received a blessing from a Pope." Garibotto, who has 2.4 million Instagram followers, also joked: At least I'm going to heaven.

Citing a source close to the Vatican press office, an investigation is underway to determine how the photo liked the Pope's official account. A Vatican spokesman said: "We deny that the 'like' comes from the Holy See and that Instagram can provide an explanation."

Pope Francis is hugely popular on social media, with his official Instagram account attracting 7.4 million followers. The account does not follow other accounts. While on Twitter, Pope Francis' account is followed by around 18.8 million people. In 2017, Pope Francis was the world's most popular leader on the social media platform. But it's very rare to create your own social media content.

"The pope is not like Donald Trump, he doesn't sit around using his cell phone or computer to tweet all day long," said Robert Mickens, editor of the Roman-based Catholic daily newspaper La Croix.

“He, for example, approves of a tweet (but doesn't retweet it) and on very rare occasions he says he wants to tweet something because of a developing situation or an emergency. So he won't do anything with this. This is the communications department and how this happened… Who knows. ”