An Italian cathedral will have to be purified after a couple of goth rock fans had sex in a confession box.
The cathedral, in the northern city of Cesena, is no longer considered fit as a place of worship and requires a special Mass to restore its sanctity, church officials said.
The act which desecrated the church took place during a seven o'clock service on Saturday morning.
A parishioner heard ''rustling and groaning'' coming from the box and called the Carabinieri, who whisked the curtains aside to find the pair of goths engaged in oral sex.
''We're atheists. Having sex in church is the same as doing it anywhere else,'' said the pair, aged 31 and 32.
Cesena Archbishop Antonio Lanfranchi, who has scheduled a 'reparatory' service for Friday, described the couple's act as ''an outrage of notable proportions which bespeaks unutterable squalor and a complete lack of respect towards other people''.
