This came along. Eat your heart out Mikey, you have a lot to learn from the RCs in the art of ecclesiastical buffoonery.

Italian priest to organize `beauty contest’ for nuns

ROME–An Italian priest says he has decided to organize an online beauty pageant for nuns.

Rev. Antonio Rungi, a theologian and schoolteacher from the Naples area, says he wants to fight the stereotype that nuns are all old and dour.

The “Miss Sister 2008” contest will start in September on a blog run by Rungi. Visitors to the site will have a month to “vote for the nun they consider a model.”

Nuns will fill out a profile, including information about their life and vocation, and provide the website with a photograph.

It will be up to them to choose whether to pose with the traditional veil or with their heads uncovered.

But Rungi says web surfers can forget it if they think they’ll be finding any bikini-clad nuns.

“We are not going to parade nuns in bathing suits,” Rungi said by telephone from his town of Mondragone. “But being ugly is not a requirement for becoming a nun. External beauty is gift from God, and we mustn’t hide it.”

Rungi said the idea was first suggested to him by nuns with whom he regularly prays and works. He hopes there will be dozens of submissions once the web site is started.

The contest drew criticism from the association of Catholic teachers.

“It’s an initiative that belittles the role of nuns who have dedicated themselves to God,” the group’s president, Alberto Giannino, told Italy’s ANSA news agency Sunday.