Miss Sister 2008

Stories about religion and technology don’t come along very often, then right out of the blue, you get two at once. In an attempt to fight the age-old stereotype of the ugly-duckling nun, an Italian priest called Antonio Rungi has announced that he is organising an online beauty pageant for nuns.

Called “Miss Sister 2008”, the contest will be run through Rungi’s blog and will kick-off on 25 September. Would-be contestants need to log-on and fill out a profile form which includes info on them, their life and their work for the church. In addition, they’ll also be required to upload a photo of themselves. A quote used on CNN from the chap organising it reads: "We are not going to parade nuns in bathing suits…but being ugly is not a requirement for becoming a nun. External beauty is gift from God, and we mustn't hide it."

MyTake – Does anybody really know what nuns do anymore? That’s not me saying that nuns don’t do anything, it’s me raising the point that the nuns and Rungi have been thinking about and that probably spawned this idea. He’s going to get his fair share trouble for this, but he’ll also be highlighting to a wider audience the type of work that is being done by nuns around the world. By utilising the wider community on the net, he and the nuns are able to start and sustain a huge number of conversations all across the world – and after all, isn’t this the whole point? The irony is perhaps in his choice of platform, maybe there is a subtler point he’s trying to make…