The singing nun is not a new phenomenon. The Belgian Jeanine Deckers, aka Soeur Sourire, shot to fame in 1963 with the tune Dominique, while Julie Andrews and Whoopi Goldberg have done their bit for fictional sisters with heavenly voices.

But in Italy this week there's only one nun worth tuning in for, and she thinks Pope Francis will be proud. Sister Cristina Scuccia, a 25-year-old Sicilian who appeared, habit-clad, on the Italian version of TV show The Voice on Wednesday, has become an instant star, with her audition racking up more than 3m views on YouTube.

Asked what she thought the Vatican would make of her punchy rendition of Alicia Keys' No One, the Ursuline sister said: "I don't know. I'm expecting a telephone call from Pope Francis, certainly. Because he exhorts us to go out, to evangelise, to say that God does not take from us but rather gives us more."

It did not appear that she had anything to worry about. In a post on Twitter, the Vatican's so-called culture minister, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, wrote: "Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others (1 Peter 4:10)".

The judges on the show praised Scuccia's "crazy energy" and "incredible" performance. Alessandro Aleotti, a rapper known as J-Ax, asked her if she sang in church on Sundays. Wearing flat black shoes, glasses and a simple crucifix round her neck, Scuccia was obliged to assure the judges that she had not come in fancy dress but was, in fact, "a very real nun".

This was not Scuccia's first time in the limelight. Last year she won a Christian music competition as part of the Good News Festival, in which she explained that she had found her vocation while playing a nun in a musical.