--- title: Balloon Gets In Pope Francis' Way description: A wayward balloon got between the Pope and a photographer today canonical: https://time.com/99909/pope-francis-balloon/ author: Alex Fitzpatrick article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-05-14T21:20:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:09:41.265Z og:title: PHOTO: Pope Floats og:description: A wayward balloon got between the Pope and a photographer today og:url: https://time.com/99909/pope-francis-balloon/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt489139e10529b6b5/69868f5d3bc9990df11a3761/pope-francis-balloon.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Pope Francis Balloon og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: PHOTO: Pope Floats twitter:description: A wayward balloon got between the Pope and a photographer today twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt489139e10529b6b5/69868f5d3bc9990df11a3761/pope-francis-balloon.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # PHOTO: Pope Floats  by [Alex Fitzpatrick](https://time.com/author/alex-fitzpatrick/)  ## Alex Fitzpatrick May 14, 2014 9:20 PM UTC  A balloon flies past Pope Francis during his general audience in St Peter's Square at the Vatican on May 14, 2014. A balloon flies past Pope Francis during his general audience in St Peter's Square at the Vatican on May 14, 2014.Tiziana Fabi—AFP/Getty Images  by [Alex Fitzpatrick](https://time.com/author/alex-fitzpatrick/)  ## Alex Fitzpatrick May 14, 2014 9:20 PM UTC A pink balloon managed to get right in-between Pope Francis and a photographer at St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday, setting up this perfectly-timed shot. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/99909/pope-francis-balloon/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/99909/pope-francis-balloon/"},"headline":"PHOTO: Pope Floats","datePublished":"2014-05-14T21:20:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:09:41.265Z","description":"A wayward balloon got between the Pope and a photographer today","url":"https://time.com/99909/pope-francis-balloon/","keywords":["Newsfeed","World"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt489139e10529b6b5/69868f5d3bc9990df11a3761/pope-francis-balloon.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alex Fitzpatrick","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alex-fitzpatrick/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt489139e10529b6b5/69868f5d3bc9990df11a3761/pope-francis-balloon.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Pope Francis Balloon","caption":"Pope Francis Balloon","creditText":"Tiziana Fabi—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/99909/pope-francis-balloon/","name":"PHOTO: Pope Floats"}}]}] ```