Pope Francis congratulated the journalist who “caught him” this week visiting his old friends who runs a record store in Rome, joking about “his bad luck” that the news was out.

The visit on Tuesday night would have remained a secret, but Javier Martinez Brocal, a reporter for the Rome Reports television news agency, happened to be in the central Rome area.

He took a photo with his smartphone of the Pope leaving the record store, posted it on Twitter and the post went viral.

In a letter he sent to Martinez Brocal yesterday Thursday, the 85-year-old Pope congratulated him on his work and joked about his…misfortune.

“There can be no denying that it was a misfortune; that after taking all the precautions, there was a journalist there in the taxi rank” Pope Francis said in the letter.

“One should not lose his sense of humor”, said Francis.

“Thank you for doing your job, even if you put the Pope in a difficult position”.

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The shop’s owners stated that they had become friends with the Pope years ago when he was Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, archbishop of Buenos Aires.

He would visit their shop to buy classical music records and CDs when he was in Rome on Church business and stayed at a nearby residence for visiting clerics.

They said they gave the pope a CD of classical music but declined to be more specific. Francis is known to like Beethoven, Mozart and Bach and even tango music from his native Argentina.