Pope Francis has taken the Twittersphere by storm yet again with the world's first papal 'selfie'.

The Pope had his picture taken inside the Vatican with young people from the Italian Diocese of Piacenza and Bobbio, who had come to Rome on a pilgrimage.

The Pope told the young crowd of 500 that he wanted to meet with them “for selfish reasons ... because you have in your heart a promise of hope.”

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“You are bearers of hope. You, in fact, live in the present, but are looking at the future. You are the protagonists of the future, artisans of the future,” according to The Telegraph.

“Make the future with beauty, with goodness and truth,” he said. “Have courage. Go forward. Make noise.”

The photo of the 76-year-old posing with the teenagers has now gone viral across social media.

Pope Francis has his picture taken inside St. Peter's Basilica with youths from the Italian Diocese of Piacenza and Bobbio who came to Rome for a pilgrimage, at the Vatican.

Pope Francis regularly hits the headlines for his unorthodox practices, including shunning the papal accommodation offered to him and choosing to sleep in a hostel instead, ignoring private cars to travel aboard buses and carrying his own bags when boarding planes.

When visiting young offenders at the 'Casal del Marmo' detention center earlier this year to mark Maundy Thursday, he washed the feet of two young female prisoners. Women had previously never before been included in the ritual, which symbolises Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. 

On the evening he was named as the new Pope, he even fetched his own luggage and paid his own hotel bill, leading Vatican Thomas Roscia, a Vatican spokesman, to remark: "We are going to have to get used to a different way of doing things".

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