Pope Francis currently has the highest Twitter following of all the world's leaders, though Donald Trump could soon overtake him.

Across his nine Twitter accounts in different languages, the Pope has a following of 36.2 million, according to The Tablet. 

A May study by the global social media analytics group Twiplomacy ranked the Twitter populairty and activity of the world's leaders. It recorded the pontiff's two most popular Tweets, both fraught with political reference to the policies of Donald Trump – without naming the President.

'I invite you not to build walls but bridges, to conquer evil with good, offence with forgiveness, to live in peace with everyone', Francis posted on March 18, 2017.

An earlier Tweet from Francis wrote: 'How often in the Bible the Lord asks us to welcome migrants and foreigners, reminding us that we too are foreigners!'

Close behind the Pope lies Trump with 35.3 million followers, who could overtake the Pope by the end of August if his current growth rate continues.

Twiplomacy also measures global interaction rate (the sum of all interactions divided by the number of tweets and the average number of followers), for which Trump and Francis are tied. 

However the 'most effective leader' was rated as Saudi Arabia's King Salman, whose every tweet is described as a 'digital home run' by Twipolmacy, garnering an average of 147,456 retweets.

Across nine accounts, the Pope currently tweets daily messages in Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish.