The Vatican has raised the question of how Pope Francis' account liked a photo of a Brazilian model and is now asking Instagram for explanations.

The photo, posted on October 5, featured scantily-dressed Garibotto standing at a school locker. It was captioned, "I can teach you a thing or two" with an emoticon of a devil's horn.

The Catholic News Agency reported that an investigation has begun in the Vatican to find out how the photo came to be liked. It is to be noted that a team of people manage the pope's social media accounts.

It is not clear when the account liked the picture, but it is reported that the like was still visible on November 13. The said photo was then unliked the next day.

Meanwhile, Natalia Garibotto, whose photo was endorsed by the pope's account, reportedly joked about the situation, "At least I'm going to heaven."

Even her management company, COY Co, enjoyed the free publicity by reposting the image on its account with the caption, "COY Co. has received the POPE'S OFFICIAL BLESSING thanks to our iconic queen @nataagataa."

"We can exclude that the 'like' came from the Holy See, and it has turned to Instagram for explanations," said a Vatican spokesperson. The pope rarely plans his social media posts.

"He does, for example, approve the tweets - but not the likes - and on very rare occasions he has said he would like to tweet something because of a developing situation or emergency. So he would have nothing to do with this - it's the communications department, and how this happens... who knows," said the editor of a Catholic daily newspaper.

He is not like Donald Trump who would sit around to tweet all day long, he added.

Pope Francis is widely popular on his social media channels and he has a following of 7.4 million on his Instagram account, which works under the username of franciscus. On his Twitter, he is followed by nearly 19 million accounts.