The pair attacked the elderly woman after breaking into her convent to look for food.
Sister Gertrud Tiefenbacher was overpowered and killed on April 18 at the female-only Sacred Heart Home.
South African Catholic Bishops Conference communications officer Father S’milo Mngadi described the attack as "evil and barbaric".
In a statement read in court, Sibongiseni Phungula, 25, said he and his co-accused, Mondli Shozi, 26, admitted charges of rape, murder and robbery.
It said the pair – who had known each other only be sight – had gone to the convent to look for food after a night of bonding over quite a few drinks.
They managed to get inside the accommodation and were interrupted by Tiefenbacher, who shouted at them.
Shozi said he grabbed her, dragged her to her room – which she had lived in for 60 straight years – and tied her up.
"I then removed her panties and had sexual intercourse with her," said Phungula.
He said adding the elderly nun was "still moving" when he left her in her bed.
Tiefenbacher's body was discovered the following day on the floor clutching a cross and with her rosary beads wrapped round her wrist.
The horrific events happened at the Roman Catholic convent in Ixopo, a village near Durban in South Africa.
Her hands had been tied with an electric typewriter cord and a wet towel, believed to have been used to suffocate her, was laid her face.
"I wish I could undo what I have done," Phungula said in his statement.
The two men admitted stealing a vacuum cleaner, groceries and a watch before fleeing.
They said they had met earlier in a pub where they drank a bottle of brandy and another bottle of spirits before setting off to the convent.
The trial, at Kwazulu-Natal High Court in Pietermaritzburg, was attended by nuns from the convent, which is one of several in Kwazulu-Natal state run by The Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood.
It is thought Phungula and Shozi cut a whole in an outer fence and snuck into the building through a side door that had accidentally been left unlocked.
However, questions still remain over how they knew the layout of the convent so well given that men are never allowed to enter.
The defendants were arrested after police raided their homes in the shanty town of Shayamoya in a suburb of Durban.
Officers found stolen property belonging to a different nun.
Tiefenbacher was described as being a motherly figure who enjoyed writing letters to past students, nuns and relatives on her typewriter.
She was survived by a younger sister and brother back in Austria.
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