Oh, I love a whodunit. And this week offered the crème de la crème when a nun in Rieti, Italy was taken to hospital with stomach pains and within hours had given birth. She hadn’t even known she was expecting.

This story reads like a Carry On film, but with less boob and more Jesus (hopefully). I wish the Sister and her new bundle of joyous joys, all the luck and love in the world, obviously. Especially with a name like Francis – named after (who else?) the Pope – because, let’s face it, he’s probably going to need it. Apparently, fellow nuns at the convent said they were “surprised” by the news. I’ll bet they were. Rieti’s local pastor Don Fabrizio Borrello was slightly less friendly in his comments to journalists: “I guess she’s telling the truth when she says she arrived at the hospital unaware of the pregnancy.”

He guesses? What kind of aspersions is he trying to cast upon the nun’s character? Even stating that he ‘guesses’ she is telling the truth, cunningly raises the notion – that no one else, of course, has had the indignity to entertain – that she may not, in fact, be telling the truth.

This mummy-nunny is 31 and she’s already achieved a divine enlightened state, a disciplined lifestyle and unexpected motherhood. Some women are true, inspirational powerhouses. Admittedly, how disciplined her lifestyle has thus far been may now be under question (by the likes of Don Fabrizio Borrello) but at least she’s being heartily supported by her local community, unlike many single mothers in our neck of the woods.

I admit, it does seem strange that she had no idea she was pregnant and is surprised – to say the least – by her new arrival. You could almost understand if she’s never removed her habit and thereby failed to recognise her changing body. Then again, she probably does take it off. Or she probably has taken it off – at least once before, anyhow. As an aside, I’ve often considered a fall-back career as a nun. Until I really think through what I might have to give up.

I had always included ‘having children’ in that list of sacrifices, but now apparently, I don’t necessarily need to. Oh, sod it: as the song almost goes – but I am taking some artistic license – here get me to the nunnery! On time...