VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Social media has become a force to be reckoned with in the gathering of cardinals preparing to elect the next pope, with some already dubbing it the ‘TikTok conclave.”
With memes from the papal funeral, NFL draft-style videos of the cardinals rumored to be leading candidates and AI-generated reels of Pope Francis meeting Jesus and Michael Jackson in heaven, social media is cluttered with pope- and Vatican-related content.
“It seems like the papal conclave is going viral,” said Katie Prejean McGrady, host of SiriusXM’s “The Catholic Channel.”
Of course, social media has become not just a new forum for speculation about who will succeed Francis in the conclave beginning Wednesday (May 7), but the social platforms have become the place to promote favorites and take down other contenders.
Social media existed in 2013 when the cardinals elected Francis — rumors were most likely to ramp up on the now-defunct Vine. This time around, the cardinals themselves have their own social media footprints, and the Vatican, never short on spectacle and fanfare, has brought its panache to Instagram and YouTube.
The influence of the 2024 movie “Conclave,” in which Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci star as cardinals scheming during a papal election, can be felt in the posts, which boast countless images from the movie of Machiavellian, scarlet-clad cardinals smoking cigarettes in Vatican corridors.
Some posters edited clips of the film …