(Vatican Radio) Americans stayed up in the pre-dawn hours of the morning to follow
live coverage of the double canonization April 27 of Popes John Paul II and John
XXIII. According to the Italian startup Datalytics which analyses social
trends on Twitter, the number of tweets from Europe, North and South America exploded
during the morning mass in St. Peter’s square in Rome. Some 104,000 messages in multiple
languages were sent between April 26-28 using the official hashtags “#2popesaints”
and the Italian version “#2papisanti.” The tweets about the canonization peaked at
19,500 at the moment Pope Francis pronounced the formula raising the two beloved popes
to sainthood.
70,000 tweets came from the USA, Canada and Europe while 27,000
came from South America, in large part from Argentina. The remaining tweets were made
around the globe.
Datalytics founder Davide Feltoni Gurini told
Vatican Radio that the overwhelming majority of tweets about the event, which drew
more than one million faithful to Rome, were positive. Pope John Paul II, whose nearly
27 year reign made him known and loved by generations of people young and old, proved
the more popular of the two pontiffs, leading his predecessor with 10,900 to John
XXIII’s 7,150 tweets in the Italian language alone.
51% of those tweeting
about the canonization were male, while 49% were female. 70% of the tweets were made
via a mobile device, possibly suggesting the users were physically present in Rome.
The
Pontifical Council for Social Communications and the Vatican Press office’s accounts
were the most active during the event, generating the most re-tweets via the English
language hashtag #2popesaints.”
Of the most shared photos on the day of the
event: a tweet from “@vaticano_news” giving a bird’s-eye view from atop Bernini’s
spectacular colonnade of a packed St. Peter’s square below. Another popular tweet,
bound to have caused a chuckle, displayed a mocked-up photo of John XXIII, John Paul
II, Benedict XVI and Pope Francis strutting across a pedestrian walkway in regular
Abbey Road Beatles-style.
Besides the official Twitter accounts for the canonization,
the most popular hashtags proved to be #canonization, #sanctification, #saints,
#iwillsing, #roma, #popefrancis, and #papisanti.
Feltoni Gurini says the
most frequently used key words tweeted around the canonization were “lembo di pelle”
or “skin fragment” in reference to the relic of Pope John XXIII, and “ampule”
which contained a sample of Pope John Paul II’s blood. During the liturgy, mega television
screens flashed images of the two reliquaries as they were placed at the altar for
veneration, so it might be assumed that some of the faithful who knew what they contained
passed the information on to friends and followers via social media.
Other
recurring words included “ceremony+canonization,” “state+nominated,” “new+icon,”
“faith+women.”
Some of the most frequent phrases shared in tweets quoted
John Paul II’s Letter to Women, Mulieris Dignitatem: “in this most arduous test of
faith and fidelity the women proved stronger than the Apostles. In this moment of
danger, those who love much succeed in overcoming their fear.” Another favorite tweet
stemmed from JPII’s Letter to Artists: “all men and women are entrusted with the
task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work
of art, a masterpiece.”
Datalytics found that the Italian television news SkyTg24
and the Italian daily Repubblica.it provided the most tweeted coverage of the event
and particularly of Pope John Paul II, while internationally acclaimed Italian singer-songwriter
Laura Pausini was also a leading tweeter.