Let Us Spray: SuperFrank Graffiti

Let Us Spray?

Vatican Lauds ‘SuperFrank’!

Embed from Getty Images

The Associated Press reported on Jan. 28, 2014:

It wasn’t enough that Pope Francis was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year – or that he fronted this week’s Rolling Stone magazine. Now there’s SuperPope graffiti sprouting up around the Vatican.

The white caped crusader appeared on a wall just off Borgo Pio, a tiny cobble-stoned street near St Peter’s Square. In typical superhero fashion, Francis’ right fist is thrust in the air, leading him in flight, while his left clutches his black satchel. “Valores,” or values in Spanish, is written across it.

The artist is identified only as Maupal.

Francis has charmed the masses with his simplicity and message of helping the poor, even as he has cracked down on Vatican waste and corruption.

The Vatican communications office approved of the image, tweeting a photo.

(Source)

There’s more information about the whole matter at this blog post, where the artist is identified as Mauro Pallotta. Catholic News Agency has more background on the artist, the image, and the intent behind its creation. (A close-up of a part of the graffiti painting, which, by the way, is only temporary, can be found here.) Though it should probably be noted that this isn’t the first graffiti image of Jorge Bergoglio: See ‘Pope Francis’ Graffiti by Elmar Karla

Here is an embed of the tweet of the Vatican communications office, mentioned in the AP news snippet:

We share with you a graffiti found in a Roman street near the #Vatican /
Les compartimos este graffiti que vimos hoy pic.twitter.com/In76sMJE4v

— VaticanCommunication (@SPC_VA) January 28, 2014