Pope Francis met with Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday as the Holy Father continued courting the global tech-giants.
Zuckerberg along with his wife Priscilla Chan had a private audience with the pontiff in the Vatican. The couple, who have promised to donate 99 per cent of their net worth over the course of their lifetime, discussed how to use communication technologies to alleviate poverty with the pope, according to a statement from the Holy See.
Zuckerberg also took the opportunity to give the Pope a drone as a gift.
A self-declared computer "dinosaur", Pope Francis has met with a number of world leaders in technology. In January he held two private meetings, one with Apple's CEO Tim Cook and another with Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Google's parent company, Alphabet.
Despite saying he does not own a computer himself, the pope has described the internet as a "gift from God" because of the "immense possibilities for encounter and solidarity". For the first time the Vatican under his leadership has run a digital-first communications strategy. He is hailed as the most influential tweeter among world leaders and launched the first ever papal Instagram account in March, quickly accumulating more than three million followers.
But he has also warned Catholic youth not to put smartphone above real relationships and preached on not using phones at the dinner table.
In a possible reflection of this speculation of social media, the pope and Zuckerberg discussed how to "encourage a culture of encounter, and help deliver a message of hope, especially to those people who are most disadvantaged", according to the Vatican statement.
