' SISTERS OF CHARITY ' : ITALIAN STUDENTS ESSAY

IN ITALY - a beach club run by NUNS is in jeopardy. Officials say the lease will be put up for auction - prompting a growing backlash.

' It's been billed as the Sisters of Charity versus the Mayor '. For 80 years or more, the Sisters of Charity of Saint Mary have occupied a small slice of terrestrial paradise, running one of the thousands of beach clubs along Italy's coast.

But this longtime arrangement on Spotorno, an Italian arrangement in Spotorno, an Italian town on the Ligurian Sea, may soon come to an end. 

The nuns' beach, like the Italian coastline, is publicly owned, and local officials say their lease will soon put up for auction, along with those of other beachfront clubs.

Some Spotorno residents are unhappy about it,  saying that the nuns had supported the community for many, many years.

Italian news outlets have picked up the story, several of them using variations on ''Holy War'' in their headlines.

But Mayor Mattia Florini says he is simply trying to enforce regional and European Union laws that have long been ignored for two decades.

'' Every Italian story seems a soap opera,'' he said, adding, '' We have a knack for coming up with 1,000 laws a day and, apparently, failing to enforce even a single one.

On a sandy beach, the nuns run a summer camp for children/students and rent umbrellas and lounge chairs to beachgoers.

Some families in Spotorno have sent their children to the summer camp for generations. While the beachgoers' umbrellas - that task is left to lifeguard - they do ''pass among them asking people how they are,'' and bringing '' words of comfort,'' said Valeria Aezenton, a local resident.

!WOW! thanks Elisabetta Povoledo.