Twenty two million follow @Pontifex

July 16, 2015 South America is making waves on the Popes's Twitter handle, @Pontifex. Just as Francis' apostolic visit in Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay concluded, the Pope's followers in nine languages surpassed 22 million. This record comes just 41 days after that number had reached 21 million. The Popes' visit to the three South American countries had an immense impact on social networks around the world. Comments, discussions and retweets surrounded the Pope's addresses and pictures were posted by various media outlets and by those participating in the events. In the course of the week of 5 July, the followers grew from 20,000 to 29,000. The Spanish account reached 9,347,116 followers making it the most popular language. English currently has 6,586,373 followers and Italian is in third place with 2,912,635. Also during the visit, the newspaper's Twitter account saw an increase. Currently more than 45,000 people follow L'Osservatore Romano.