The Catholic Church seeks means and languages that help spread the faith in the cultural context of the 21st century, marked by the prevalence of images and Digital Communication. But can a pope be relevant today?

The value and media visibility of the pope received a considerable boost during the pontificate of John Paul II. Francis has been accompanied by the media from the first day to the last. At the conclave that elected him in 2013 there were thousands of accredited journalists from 65 countries; the 600 journalists covering the Holy See had been joined by 4,432 special envoys.

The cardinals elected Francis pope in a climate of maximum global media expectation, which continued in the following days, as audiences and media got to know an unexpected and surprising pontiff, the first non-European in 1,200 years.

Francis demonstrated a special ability to convey the message through language, gestures and symbols. His magisterium was full of graphic and original expressions such as "make a mess", "liquefy the faith", "smell like sheep", "Church on the way out", "walk through patience", "airport bishops", "the idol of money", "throwaway culture", "globalization of indifference", "world war in pieces", "sanctity next door", " meetingculture", "balcony life", "young people on the couch".... These expressions have been shaping a singular speech and, at times, they have been accepted by public opinion, inside and outside the Church.

In addition to the initialmeeting with journalists, several milestones stood out in Francis' relationship with the media from the very beginning. The trip to the island of Lampedusa in 2013 was one of them. After learning of the death of another group of immigrants who wanted to arrive from Africa, the pope went there on a trip that he himself considered one of the most relevant moments of his pontificate.

In Lampedusa, Francis raised his voice:

"I felt I had to come here today to pray, to make a gesture of closeness, but also so that what has happened will not be repeated. We are disoriented, we are no longer attentive to the world in which we live, we do not care, we do not protect what God has created for everyone and we are not even capable of caring for one another."

The speech was widely echoed by world public opinion.

Other milestones came with the trip to Brazil for the World Youth workshop (2013): the in-flight press conferences. On that first occasion, the pope was asked up to 23 questions that were published in full by some media. The frank and open style was characteristic in the interventions: "To make an armored space between the bishop and the people is madness", he told the journalists.

In-flight press conferences have been a regular channel of spontaneous communication and sometimes ended with one-on-one conversations with journalists.

Time magazine named Francis "Person of the Year," recognizing the man it called "pope of the people," "who adopted the name of a humble saint." Francis, Time said, "is called to transform a place that has measured change for centuries". The publication's nomination, already received by John XXIII and John Paul II, was yet another step in Francis' B in world public opinion.

The Christmas cover of The New Yorker helped underscore this, along with other cover appearances in such unusual outlets for religion as Vanity Fair or Rolling Stone.

The pontiff has been a major player in the global media, which have accelerated the more social aspect of his figure and his leadership, inside and outside the Church. Initiated by Benedict XVI in December 2012, the pope's social media accounts (now we must add the one inaugurated by Francis on Instagram in 2016) have become global voices of reference letter in digital environments.

The nine Twitter accounts (in Spanish, English, Italian, Portuguese, French, Latin, German, Polish and Arabic) have more than 40 million followers. The potential for dissemination of the messages is striking: some of Francis' tweets have been retweeted more than 13,000 times.

Also striking is the issue of messages that become "favorites", another measure of audience impact and engagement that is often used to measure the effectiveness of network communication.

What did Francis think about communication? In 2016 and 2017 the pope had twelve meetings with the French sociologist Dominique Wolton in which he held wide-ranging conversations on the great themes of our time, among them communication. Francis pointed to a model that emphasizes proximity: closeness to people is the crucial consideration, because from his point of view communication is, first and foremost, communication staff. "Communication is something that cannot be bought. It is not sold. It is given," he said.

Proximity is precisely the reason he gives for using Twitter in his conversation with Wolton: "I have to use all means to get closer to people. It is a means of getting closer (...) I write tweets as if to open doors, I am sure that these tweets touch hearts". He also highlighted humility as one of his priority characteristics: "The only key that opens the door to communication is humility".

As for journalism professionals, Francis shared his vision as early as 2016 in a speech in Italy to the Nationalcommittee of the Order of Journalists. There he pointed out that it is up to them to write a "first draft of history", which gives an idea of the transcendence of their mission statement.

In his opinion, the vocation of journalism was "to make the social dimension of a true citizenship grow". "It cannot become a weapon of destruction: I want journalism to be, more and more and everywhere, an instrument of construction, a factor of common good, an accelerator of reconciliation processes," he said. The Philosophy of "building bridges" was a core topic in his understanding of communication.

Any assessment of Francis' pontificate is still premature. But some conclusions can already be drawn. In a way, his strategy consisted of a lack of strategy: freshness, spontaneity and proximity.

Difficult to pigeonhole into conventional media categories, he also had a smile that has gone around the world. These qualities have allowed the Church to connect with freshness in less usual contexts, with audiences that were less comfortable with religion. Francis' message has been a source of opportunities for communicating the faith in the 21st century and has allowed the Church to reach new forums with its mission statement.