ROME?An Italian priest and theologian on Sunday said he was organizing an online beauty pageant for nuns to give them more visibility within the Catholic Church and to fight the stereotype that they are all old and dour.

The ?Miss Sister 2008? contest will start in September on a blog run by the Rev. Antonio Rungi and will give nuns from around the world a chance to showcase their work and their image.

?Nuns are a bit excluded, they are a bit marginalized in ecclesiastical life,? Rungi told The Associated Press after Italian media carried reports of the idea. ?This will be an occasion to make their contribution more visible.?

Rungi, a theologian and schoolteacher from the Naples area, said that visitors to his site would have a month to ?vote for the nun they consider a model.?

But no swimsuits

Nuns wishing to participate in the contest should send their picture to Rungi and fill out a profile including information about their life and vocation. It will be up to them to choose whether to pose with the traditional veil or with their heads uncovered.

?We are not going to parade nuns in bathing suits,? Rungi said by telephone from his southern Italian 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.?

A newspaper on Sunday quoted the priest as saying that ?nuns are above all women and beauty is a gift from God.?

?This contest will be a way to show there isn?t just the beauty we see on television but also a more discrete charm,? Rungi told the daily Corriere della Sera.

?You really think all nuns are old, stunted and sad? This isn?t the case anymore, thanks to the arrival in our country of young and vital nuns,? notably from Africa and Latin America, the priest noted.

Idea from nuns themselves

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 website is started.

?I hope the next (pageant) won?t just take place online but that we can organize a real show that can take place during the Miss Italy contest,? he said.

But the contest drew criticism from an 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 on Sunday.