He commands the hearts of tweens around the world, but when it comes to Catholic headquarters, pop star Justin Bieber is no match for 2,000 years of tradition.
CTV News reported the Canadian heartthrob was recently chastised by Vatican staff for kicking around a soccer ball during a private tour of the Holy See.
In Rome earlier this month, Mr. Bieber posted a picture to his Instagram page showing himself in front of an old building, holding a soccer ball and wearing a baseball cap, shorts and a T-shirt.
The shorts and cap, according to CTV, violate the Vatican’s dress code.
CTV reported Mr. Bieber visited the Vatican Museums and the Papal Apartments. The Vatican has not released a statement on the incident.
SINFUL MEDIA
Twitter is “the source of all evil and devastation,” according to Saudi Arabia’s leading Muslim cleric — and anyone who’s seen Kim Kardashian’s page.
Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh called out the social media site this week on his television show “Fatwa,” reported the Agence France-Presse.
“People are rushing to it thinking it’s a source of credible information, but it’s a source of lies and falsehood,” said the sheikh.
Saudi Arabia has the world’s highest percentage of active social media users, RT News reported, and many see sites like Twitter and Facebook as places “to express themselves and their occasionally radical opinions in the ultraconservative Muslim country.”
The reaction to the sheikh’s comments have been divided, AFP reported, with some sarcastically tweeting about shutting down their accounts, and others concurring that “the evils of Twitter are many.”
O TANNENBAUM
A tower decorated as a Christmas tree visible across the border between South and North Korea has been taken down, the BBC reported.
A South Korea defense official told the Yonhap News Agency the 60-foot tower was taken down because it was at risk of collapse, denying reports that North Korea had threatened to knock it down.
Its removal does come a week after officials from both countries met for the first time in years, and around the same time North Korea released an American man who had been detained in the communist country since the summer, the BBC reported.
The tower was built in 1971, and was popular with Christian groups who would decorate it with lights to look like a Christmas tree, the BBC reported.
South Korea stopped allowing the decorations 10 years ago after atheist North Korea complained the tree was being used to push a Christian agenda because some residents could see it across the border. The decorations started again in 2010 after the sinking of a South Korean warship, the BBC reported.
’HOLY’-WEEN
Christians should use Halloween to throw a huge party — not for best costume, but to remember the resurrection of Jesus.
That’s the message Kirk Cameron, former TV child actor who now leads a Christian film enterprise, told the Christian Post this week.
“Halloween gives you a great opportunity to show how Christians celebrate the day that death was defeated,” Mr. Cameron said. “Clearly, no Christians ought to be glorifying death, because death was defeated, and that was the point of All Hallows Eve.”
According to the National Endowment for the Humanities, Halloween has its roots in the Celtic celebration Samhain, which marked the last harvest of the season and ushered in the Celtic New Year.
“On the eve of Samhain, they believed the veil between the two realms was the most transparent, allowing the spirits of those who have died to return to visit earth,” the NEH states. “With the end of harvesting season, the entire natural world moves into its annual dormant state of hibernation, essentially ’dying’ until its annual rebirth the following spring.”
• Meredith Somers covers religion for The Washington Times.
• Meredith Somers can be reached at msomers@washingtontimes.com.
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