Pope Francis’s Twitter Followers Tops 6 Million in 2 Months; Accepts Invitation to Visit Israel

Pope Francis continues to enjoy immense popularity in the Catholic world two months after his election as head of the 1.2-billion member church. Latest report said that he doubled his Twitter followers to more than 6 million.

When Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI signed off as pontiff on Feb 28, 2013, he left the handle @pontifex to his yet-to-be elected successor, plus 3 million Twitter followers. In just 48 days, the new pope - formerly known as Buenos Aires Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio - gained about 2.7 million new followers or an average of 60,000 daily added.

It helps that since he resumed the use of the @Pontifex handle, Pope Francis has been active and in the last few days had tweeted almost daily.

According to the Italian Catholic blog Il Sismografo, cited by Vatican Insider, the bulk of the pope's new Twitter followers are from the Spanish-speaking groups, Portuguese youth who are interested in attending the 28^th World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and Latin Americans.

Besides the WYD event, the pope will also visit Israel, but there is no fixed date yet for his Holy Land trip. Pope Francis was invited on Tuesday by Israeli President Shimon Peres to visit Israel.

Mr Peres was in Vatican where he discussed with the pontiff the civil war in Syria, tensions in Iran and the situation in the region. The president said there is a chance to open negotiations with Palestine since Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is a genuine partner for peace.