Photo Of Reverend Sister Who Gave Birth In Italy + Says She Had No Idea She Was Pregnant

                            

A Salvadorean nun sister Roxana who said she had no idea she was pregnant gave birth in Italy last week after she felt stomach cramps in her convent and was rushed to hospital, Italian media reported on Friday. 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.

Her picture above was published in the Italian daily newspaper Corriere Della Sera, who have carried out an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the birth of 9lb Francis and have spoken to the the social worker in the case. It shows Sister Roxana, who is currently in the first floor maternity unit at the San Camillo de Lellis hospital in Rieti, 50 miles north of Rome, as she took her vows and became a nun in the order last September.

She told her social worker Anna Fontanella: 'I am so happy. I feel more of a mother than a nun, I think that's obvious. I decided to call him Francis in honour of our wonderful south American Pope. I do not feel of guilt. I will be keeping him and bringing him up. He is a gift from God. I am little worried about all the publicity, not only in Italy but in El Salvador and all over the world. Everyone is talking about this and I don't think I will be able to return to my home country, let alone Rieti.'

Sister Roxana has written a letter of apology to the order's mother superior general Elvira Petaraca - the woman who in September she solemnly promised to follow her vows of 'chastity, poverty and obedience', the three main pillars of the Little Disciples of Jesus Order. The nun had only arrived in Italy last summer at the nunnery in Rieti and has told officials that the father is a man from her native El Salvador but she has so far not named him. Father Benedetto Falcetti, priest at the nearby St Michael's church in Rieti, said: 'It all happened last spring, around March or April time when she was back in El Salvador to get her passport renewed.