Strange: Nun has baby. Names baby Francesco.

This is going to start a lot of gossip and provide fodder for conspiracy theorists. 

A nun who was rushed to hospital complaining of acute stomach pains has given birth to a baby boy – and named him Francesco after the Pope.

The 31-year-old nun began to feel severe abdominal cramps on Wednesday and gave birth just a few hours later.

The discovery of her pregnancy has embarrassed the Catholic Church in Italy, with the local bishop saying 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 lead a secular life with her baby, away from religious institutions," said a spokesman for Delio Lucarelli, bishop of Rieti.

The nun, who is from El Salvador, had kept her pregnancy a secret and even as she was being taken to hospital in an ambulance denied that she could be pregnant.