Pope Francis launches Catholic Church's first ever smartphone app

The days when you prayed by putting your hands together appear long gone – now even Pope Francis is asking his flock to go online instead.

In a sign of the times, the head of the Roman Catholic church yesterday launched a new app allowing the faithful to pray with him, the Daily Mail reports. 

He presented the Vatican's latest digital platform, known as the Worldwide Network of Prayer with the Pope, during his traditional Sunday address to tens of thousands of people in St Peter's Square.

The new app, called Click to Pray, will inform the church's 1.3 billion followers what he is praying for – such as world peace or the population of a country hit by a natural disaster. 

The hope is that Catholics will then join him, .