HAMPSHIRE model Lucy Pinder has sparked controversy after posing for a magazine - dressed in a priest's robe.

The ex-Page 3 girl, from Winchester, has appeared on the cover of men's magazine Loaded in an edition focusing on the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI's retirement.

But the image, which shows Saints supporter Lucy wearing an open white robe, a cross around her neck and holding another cross in her hand, has sparked outrage among millions of Catholics in the US.

The magazine has come under fire from the Catholic League, an influential religious organisation in America, after using the picture above the headline 'For God's Sake'.

The 29-year-old is also wearing stockings and suspenders beneath a priest's stole.

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, is reported as saying: "Lucy Pinder shouldn't have any problem turning men's heads, so it is all the more gratuitous to see her wearing a priest's stole, stitched with crosses, nicely covering her plus-sized chest."

"If Lucy has any guts, perhaps next time she'll carefully drape herself in some Islamic garb during Ramadan. And then run for the hills."

A Loaded magazine spokesman told The Sun: "It wasn't aimed with the intention of upsetting the Catholic Church or the Vatican.

"However if they do want to consider Lucy Pinder for the Papal vacancy we will put it to her."

Magazine bosses and Lucy Pinder herself have both leapt to the defence of the cover.

The model said that the lads' mag “simply wanted a current news theme to the shoot, based on the unprecedented events of a Pope resigning.”

She added that the shoot was “meant to be fun and very tongue-in-cheek, the intention was not to cause offence.”

A spokesman from Loaded has said that the cover was not aimed at upsetting the Catholic Church or the Vatican.

But he added: “However if they do want to consider Lucy Pinder for the Papal vacancy we will put it to her."