Nun who gave birth ‘didn’t know she was pregnant’
A Salvadoran nun who said she had no idea she was pregnant gave birth in Italy after she felt stomach cramps in her convent and was rushed to hospital, Italian media reported.
The 31-year-old mother and her baby boy, who weighs 3.5 kilogrammes (nine pounds), are doing well and other new mothers in Rieti hospital have begun collecting clothes and donations for her, the reports said.
“I did not know I was pregnant. I only felt a stomach pain,” the nun was quoted as saying at the hospital, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.
La Repubblica said she gave birth on Wednesday.
ANSA said the nun had named her baby Francesco (Francis) — also the Pope’s chosen title and one of the most popular names in Italy, where St Francis of Assisi is the much-loved national patron saint.
The hospital could not be reached for comment.
The nun belongs to the “Little Disciples of Jesus” convent in Campomoro near Rieti, which manages an old people’s home and reports said she would keep the baby. Her fellow nuns were quoted saying they were “very surprised”.
The local bishop says that she will have to leave her convent in Rieti, north of Rome, after breaking her vow of chastity.
“It would be preferable that she now led a secular life with her baby, away from religious institutions,” said a spokesman for Delio Lucarelli, bishop of Rieti.
The convent’s mother superior, Sister Erminia, said: “It seems she was not able to resist temptation.”
There was speculation that the nun may have fallen pregnant during a visit to her home country last year.
“Both mother and baby are in good health,” said Pasquale Carducci, the director of the local hospital.
