Furious Pope Francis Slaps Away Woman's Hand After She Tries To Grab Him

The Pope slapped away a woman's hand after she grabbed him and tried to pull him towards her during New Year's Eve celebrations.

In footage, Pope Francis looked to be fuming after the woman attempted to drag him over to her.

In the clip, people can be heard shouting: "Pope!" and "Happy New Year!" as he walks past, stopping to touch hands with excited members of the public.

However, as he turns to walk away one woman makes a grab for his hand and refuses to let go, despite his attempts to shake her off.

His security staff don't seem to be up to much, so in the end, Pope Francis appears to have had enough and slaps the woman's hand away.

The woman doesn't seem too put out by the whole thing and stares at the Pope as he walks off.

Following this, the leader of the Catholic church appeared to calm down and went over to admire the Nativity scene which had been set up in the Vatican.

He was later seen shaking hands with other members of the public and kissing a baby's cheek.

This isn't the first time Pope Francis has been caught on camera looking a bit p***ed off with members of the public.

Last March he was filmed quickly pulling his hand away from folks trying to kiss his papal ring.

At the time Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said: "The Holy Father told me that the motivation was very simple: hygiene.

"He wants to avoid the risk of contagion for the people, not for him."

This sounds like a good reason to me, but at the time it caused a bit of a backlash, as the practice of kissing the papal ring goes back centuries and is considered to be a way for people to show respect to the Pope - so by not allowing them to do this, Pope Francis was going against Church tradition.

Kevin Cusick, a Catholic priest, took to Twitter to say: "It's a grace for the faithful to be able to show respect for the office of the Pope by kissing the papal ring.

"It's not about the Pope, it's about the faithful."