Italians crack down on Virgin Mary porn sites

Italian websites which offer Virgin Mary-themed pornography are being shut down for blasphemy in a move by the country's strict Catholic authorities.

So far five websites have been closed down by a dedicated team of six police officers who spent two years looking into the operations of the offending sites.

According to a report on Ananova one Roman man has been arrested in conjunction with the investigation and is being held while the police try to decide what to charge him with. Blasphemy is still a criminal offence in Italy and in theory is punishable with a custodial sentence.

Italian police said the sites attracted around 12 million hits during the two-year period they were up and running.