DON CAMILLO, it seems, has had the last laugh: a former communist mayor in Sicily has turned her back on politics to become a nun in a closed order.

Maria Viglianti, a widowed mother of four, entered the Convent of the Visitation at Palermo this week with a new name, Sister Giovanna Francesca, after taking her vows before Cardinal Salvatore De Giorgi, the Archbishop of Palermo. Nuns in the convent take a vow of silence and spend their days in contemplation and prayer.

The move has astonished those who remember Signora Viglianti as the highly vocal and militant left-wing Mayor of Castel di Lucio, a small mountain town near Messina.

Signora Viglianti, was a schoolteacher who became a firebrand political activist in the 1980s, earning the nickname “La Pasionaria”. As mayor she led demonstrations against war, unemployment and poverty, and campaigned to stop the encroachment of buildings on a nature and woodland reserve. She even took on the Mafia, which she accused of siphoning off water supplies.

Residents said that she was “always waving the red flag”, and remained a militant even when the Italian Communist Party mutated into the moderate Democrats of the Left in the 1990s. “Yet now she has said goodbye to the hammer and sickle and embraced the cross,” commented Il Giornale.

Signora Viglianti’s children — Tiziana, Costanza, Felice and Salvatore — said that their mother had told them three years ago and that they had come to accept it. “We are proud of her,” Tiziana said. “She has led an exceptional life, and has now taken an exceptional step by becoming a nun.”

Francesca Scudiscio, a left-wing Castel di Luccio councillor, said that she found Signora Viglianti’s behaviour incomprehensible. “We worked closely together for 20 years. We grew up together politically and shared the same convictions,” she said. “She had so much left to do, for her family and for the community.”

Alessandro Giordano, another councillor, said that he had not yet come to terms with her choice. “I’m not judging her negatively — her decision must be respected. But I just cannot understand how someone who worked like a heroine for night and day for so many years to look after her sick husband and her children while also attending council meetings and engaging tirelessly in politics can do such a thing.”

But Antonino Alberti, the present mayor, said that Signora Viglianti had made “a courageous choice”. He said that he had often clashed with her politically, “but I do not see any contradiction between her communist past and her Catholic present. I can see that both derive from her commitment to justice and equality and her concern for the poor and disadvantaged.”

Signora Viglianti made no public statement before taking her vow of silence. Her children said she had explained that she “saw her life in terms of service, whether to the people or to God”.

Tensions in Italy between the Left and the Church were immortalised after the Second World War by the writer Giovanni Guareschi in his wry tales of Don Camillo, a parish priest who is eternally — and often comically — at odds with the local communist mayor, Peppino.

Times Recommends

• Times Charity Appeal: SolarAid
• Is it Black Monday all over again for Dubai?
• Behind the scenes at the biggest deal