The Vatican has called for worshippers to be less prudish about seeing the Virgin Mary breast-feeding Jesus.

A vast number of paintings depicting the bare breasts of the Madonna have been "censored by the modern age" because they were too "unseemly", according to L'Osservatore Romano, the official newspaper of the Holy See.

Lucetta Scaraffia, a church historian, has called for the image of Mary as an human, tender and loving mother to be rehabilitated. She said: "Jesus was a baby like all others. His divinity does not exclude his humanity".

Since the 17th century, artists have been covering up Mary because of criticism about the "carnality and unbecoming nature of many sacred images".

The censorship was so widespread that even the nudes in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel were subsequently covered up for fear of offending worshippers.

In another article, Father Enrico dal Covolo, a professor of classic and Christian literature at the Pontifical Salesian University said: "The Virgin Mary who nurses her son Jesus is one of the most eloquent signs that the word of God truly and undoubtedly became flesh".

The intervention of the newspaper could inspire a revival in sacred images of a semi-nude Mary. Similar images can be traced back to the earliest days of Christianity.