The Vatican newspaper said that as of noon Italian time on Thursday, the pope had 2.1 million followers on Twitter, eight days after his first tweet was sent.
While Canadian singer-songwriter Bieber has roughly 15 times as many followers — 31.7 million — the Vatican newspaper said Benedict had beaten Bieber on re-tweets.
It said about 50 per cent of the pope’s followers had re-tweeted his first tweet on Dec. 12, while only 0.7 per cent of Bieber’s followers had re-tweeted one of the singer’s most popular tweets on Sept. 26, when he commented on the death by cancer of a six-year-old fan.
The Vatican said this was part of a wider trend in which people were looking for more spiritual content.
— Reuters
