A singing nun, who became a pop sensation in Italy when she won the country’s version of The Voice this year, has chosen Madonna’s provocative 1984 smash hit single Like a Virgin as the first song from her new album.

Sister Cristina Scuccia is far from the most conventional of convent-dwellers, and has even released a music video to coincide with dropping her new album.

In the original video for the song, pop-star Madonna is seen bounding around Venice, wearing a wedding gown and accompanied by a man in a lion costume. In Sister Cristina’s, the action also takes place in Venice, but the arrangement of the song is something akin to a religious hymn.

“I chose it myself, without any desire to provoke or cause a scandal,” the nun told Catholic newspaper Avvenire, regarding her controversial choice.

“By reading the text, without letting yourself be influenced by previous interpretations, you discover that it is a song about the ability of love to renew people, to redeem them from their past. And that’s how I wanted to interpret it.

“That’s why we transformed the pop-dance track that it was into a romantic ballad a bit like Amos Lee, more like a secular prayer than a pop song.”

The song will be just one of the tracks on the nun’s first album, to be released on November 11th.

The self-titled album will feature ten famous pop covers including Keane’s Somewhere Only We Know, Coldplay’s Fix You, Alicia Keys’ No One, Cyndi Lauper’s True Colours and Jessie J’s Price Tag.

Sister Cristina, a reformed teenage delinquent from Sicily who found god, signed a record contract with Universal after swooping to victory in The Voice Italy in June. Her performances on the show have raked in more than 100 million views on YouTube since her victory.

The nun won over viewers with her take on classic songs like Girls Just Want To Have Fun and Time of My Life from the film Dirty Dancing.

Check out her cover of Like a Virgin below: