Pope Francis made on Saturday the most significant appointment in the Roman Catholic Church since he became pontiff in March 2013. However, the appointment of Archbishop Pietro Parolin as new Vatican Secretary of State was upstaged by the publication of the papal selfie.

On the same day, the charismatic pope posed with young visitors at the Vatican who took a selfie with them which was published in different papers since it was also another historical moment with the pope joining a very popular photo-taking technique in social media.

Needless to say, the selfie photo, seen below, has gone viral with various print and online publications running the selfie, including Yahoo! News, Telegraph World, Scotsman, ABC News and NBC.

Source: Twitter

This early, the selfie gave birth to a naughty meme posted by Dominic in Twitter, obviously the product of Photoshop, showing Pope Francis taking a selfie himself as most people do, while naked in front of a mirror, with a white cloth covering his private part.

The young people who took the selfie shot with the pope were teenagers from the Diocese of Piacenza and Bobbio who went on a pilgrimage to the Holy See.

The pontiff was quoted by the Telegraph as telling the young pilgrims, "You are the bearers of hope. You, in fact, live in the present, but are looking at the future. You are the protagonists of the future, artisans of the future ... Make the future with beauty, with goodness and truth. Have courage. Go forward. Make noise."

And the group indeed made Internet noise, unwittingly upstaging the appointment of the 58-year-old Vatican diplomat who replaced the retiring 79-year-old Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

The outgoing secretary of state has been criticised for his handling of the Vatileaks scandal in 2012.

Archbishop Parolin, an Italian, would be recalled from his post as Vatican nuncio in Venezuela.

Source: Wikipedia