In an attempt to give nuns more visibility within the Catholic Church and fight the stereotype that nuns are all old and dour, an Italian priest said over the weekend that he is organizing an online beauty pageant specifically for nuns. Dubbed "Miss Sister 2006", the contest will begin in September on a blog run by Rev. Antonio Rungi.

Nuns from around the world will be given a chance to showcase their work, and their image.

Rungi told the AP: "Nuns are a bit excluded, they are a bit marginalized in ecclesiastical life. This will be an occasion to make their contribution more visible."

The oldest known surviving copy of the New Testament is being brought into the 21st century as parts of it will go online for the very first time. The full text of the Codex Sinaiticus will be available online approximately one year from now.

The Codex Sinaiticus is a 4th century text handwritten in Greek. The British Library plans to begin publishing the book online, beginning with The Gospel of Mark and the Book of Psalms, which will go online Thursday.

While translations of the Codex Sinaiticus have been widely available for some time, this is the first time that the pages of the manuscript will be able to be seen by a larger audience. Previously, the pages have been viewed up close mainly by those in academia.

As the pages are published online and the web site becomes operational, photographs of each page of the text will be shown, along with links to translations in English and German. A search function will make the manuscript searchable.

Pope Benedict XVI announced on Monday that the Shroud of Turin, a mysterious yellow linen believed to be Christ's burial cloth, will go on display again in 2010. The last time that the Shroud was on public display was for the Catholic jubilee year in 2000.

the clothe measures 14.5 x 3.9 feet, and bears the image of a crucified man. It shows the back and front of a bearded man with long hair, arms crossed on his chest. Meanwhile, the entire cloth is marked by what looks to be rivulets of blood from woods in the feet, side, and wrists.

It looks eerily reversed like a photographic negative, and has never been able to be definitively explained. During the 20th century, it was only shown four times.

Carbon dating in 1988 indicated the Shround was from between 1260 and 1390, implying it was a fake. However, scientists have been at a loss to explain how the image was left on the cloth. Most agree that it couldnot be painted or printed, and some believe that the 1988 tests may have been faulty and that the results were corrupted by bacteria that had encrusted over the centuries.

Another church pastor with long-standing, close ties to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has delivered a controversial sermon at Obama's church, Trinity United Church of Christ. In the sermon given just last Sunday, Father Michael Pfleger, a white reverend at the predominantly African-American St. Sabina's Catholic Church on Chicago's South Side, mocked Senator Hillary Clinton.

Speaking as a guest pastor at Trinity UCC, Pfleger mocked Obama's rival for having cried in New Hampsire, suggesting that she cried only because she thought that her status as a white person and the wife of a former president made her entitled to the presidency.

A video of the sermon has been circulating, and is now available on YouTube. You can watch it here:

In the sermon, Pfleger discusses the importance of taking on "white entitlement and supremacy wherever it raises its head."

Cleveland will once again play host to some of the Vatican's most treasured and prized items, some of which have never before been on public view. Opening May 31 at the Western Reserve Historical Society is the "Vatican Treasures" exhibit, which features some of the earliest known depictions of Jesus amongst a collection of Vatican art and artifacts..

One of the largest Vatican collections to ever tour North America, the exhibit features works by Michaelangelo, Bernini, Giotto, Guercino, and many others, as well as the venerated relics of Saint Peter and items from the election of Pope Benedict XVI. Some of the 200 artifacts included in the exhibit date back to as early as the 3rd century.

The exhibit is dived into four thematic sections, illustrating the evolution of the Church and the papacy beginning with Saint Peter, leading up to modern times through the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI. The exhibit places a special emphasis on founding 500 years ago of Renaissance Saint Peter's Basilica, the Vatican Museums, and the Papal Swiss Guard.

In an interview published Tuesday by the official Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's chief astronomer said that belief in aliens does not contradict faith in God.

Rev. José Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director fo the Vatican Observatory, indicated that the vastness of the universe means it is possible that there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones.

Funes said that the notion of extraterrestrial life "doesn't contradict our faith" because aliens would still be God's creatures.

According to the Vatican, for the first time ever, there are more Musliams than Roman Catholics in the world. Monsignor Vittorio Formenti compiled the Vatican's 2008 yearbook of statistics which was revealed yesterday.

According to Formenti, Muslims make up 19.2% of the world's population, while Catholics make up 17.4%. If all Christian groups were considered, including Orthodox churches, Anglicans, and Protestants, Christians make up 33% of the world's population.

The Vatican put the number of Roman Catholics in the world at 1.13 billion. And while there were no official statistics included for Muslims, it is generally estimated that they make up about 1.3 billion.

"For the first time in history we are no longer at the top. The Muslims have overtaken us," said Monsignor Formenti.

While the number of Catholics as a proportion of the population has remained fairly stable, the percentage of Muslims was growing due to higher birth rates.

In an attempt to give moral and ethical behavior more significance and relevance to modern times, the Vatican has announced seven new deadly sins. Published in the Vatican's official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, Vatican officials said that the new items address a global "secular" society bent on concerns in the age of globalization. The revision occurs 1,500 years after the first list.

Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, said, "The sins of today have a social resonance as well as an individual one. In effect, it is more important than ever to pay attention to your sins."

Girotti named the new mortal sins to be:

1. Genetic modfication
2. Human experimentations
3. Polluting the environment
4. Social injustice
5. Causing poverty
6. Financial gluttony
7. Taking drugs

Girotti continued, stating, "You offend God not only by stealing, blaspheming or coveting your neighbor's wife, but also by ruining the environment, carrying out mortally debatable scientific experiments, or allowing genetic manipulations which alter DNA or compromise embryos."

The group of online users known as "Anonymous", who previously crashed various Church of Scientology websites named February 10 an international day of protest against the church in an on-going effort to "destroy" the religion.

Anonymous first declared war on the controversial religion several weeks ago when a Scientology recruitment video featuring Tom Cruise circulated throughout the web. After YouTube removed the video from their site, Anonymous organized and posted their own video declaring war on the religion.

Since declaring war on Scientology, and promising to "expel you from the internet and systematically dismantle the Church of Scientology in its present form," several major Scientology websites in the U.S. and the United Kingdom crashed. The FBI was also called into investigate after envelopes filled with white powder were sent to 19 Scientology churches in the Los Angeles area.

Pope Benedict XVI has changed a traditional Good Friday prayer which called for the conversion of Jews by removing references to the "blindness" in their hearts. In recent years, only the traditional Latin mass has used the Good Friday prayer. Members of both the Jewish and Catholic communities have already condemned the alteration.

The new translation of the Good Friday prayer has removed mention of "blindness", a "veil" or "darkness" in reference to those of the Jewish faith.

The Italian news agency ANSA has supplied a partial, unofficial translation of the prayer, which says:

"Let us pray also for the Jews that the Lord our God may illuminate their hearts and that they also may acknowledge Our Lord Jesus Christ."

The old text prayed for, in Latin, the conversion of the Jews, calling on God to deliver "that people...from its darkness" and to remove the "blindness" (a term which was adapted from an Epistle of St. Paul).

After the publication of the Motu, which re-introduced the pre-Conciliation Mass, many in the Hebrew world were concerned. The Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, and spiritual guides of the Sephardic and Aschenazi communities wrote to Pope Benedict XVI to ask that the Good Friday prayer be altered.