On Monday, Pope Francis toured parts of Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, a country wracked in recent years by civil strife that to an extent played along sectarian lines. During his visit, as my colleague Kevin Sieff reported, the pontiff urged unity and reconciliation.
It's to be hoped that the message was heeded by the throngs that came out to greet the pope. But elsewhere, especially on social media, the world heard another message.
An image taken Sunday at a camp for the internally displaced showed Francis speaking while holding a microphone, his other hand poised horizontally.
It led to a hilarious, if irreverent, meme: Twitter users imagined the pontiff as a rapper and gave him appropriate lyrics using the hashtag #popebars. Here's a sampling of what followed.
"birthdays was the worst days
— Saladin Ahmed (@saladinahmed) November 30, 2015
now I sip Christ's blood when I'm thirst-ay" #PopeBars pic.twitter.com/HfXdkNliLL
"God had a mixtape he named it the Bible, Jesus had a rap crew called it the disciples" #PopeBars pic.twitter.com/s9bu5PfHci
— a cool nigga (@Floyd_Within) November 30, 2015
Lyrical cataclysm
— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) November 30, 2015
Miracle catechism
Smack em w that epistle
Then
Back to the Vaticizzle#PopeBars
"It's me Yung Pope
— The Best Ya Mama Joke Never Told (@FeministaJones) November 30, 2015
Drop holy bars so dope
Stay fresher than Severus Snape
When I rock MY sanctified cape" #PopeBars pic.twitter.com/3iCEIOJAiW
Holy flow & I got it running, preaching like its the 2nd coming
— Ryan Cummings (@Pol_Sec_Analyst) November 30, 2015
Gucci Fresh with a lil Escada, not only the devil stuntin in prada#PopeBars
Coldest rapper to ever call Rome my home/ Rhymes so real Moses could set em in stone #PopeBars @netw3rk pic.twitter.com/2zjhE71XIc
— Sam Johnson (@sgjohn_vt) November 30, 2015
"Drop my LP, it sells like Adele/My game's so flames, I got props from Hell" #PopeBars pic.twitter.com/xh3ZxntTwL
— Musa Okwonga (@Okwonga) November 30, 2015
"On the mic, I'll beat your best bars on my worst day/Me, losing? Rare as a nun on a first date" #PopeBars pic.twitter.com/4L8a1cWJLf
— Musa Okwonga (@Okwonga) November 30, 2015
The Post's Elahe Izadi got in on the act:
Brothers front, they say the Pope can't flow/But I've been known to do the impossible like St. Joe #PopeBars pic.twitter.com/2l3ld2sqrQ
— Elahe Izadi | الهه (@ElaheIzadi) November 30, 2015
I bomb papally/Socrates' philosophies and hypotheses can't define how I be droppin' these
— Elahe Izadi | الهه (@ElaheIzadi) November 30, 2015
homilies #PopeBars pic.twitter.com/vRlDylA8xq
And some observers tried to return the conversation to the issues actually vexing the Central African Republic. New York-based journalist Siddhartha Mitter name-checked two warring factions:
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