A controversy has broken out in Italy over the admission by a Roman Catholic priest that he helped young Albanian prostitutes to obtain abortions.

The priest, Father Andrea Gallo, from the northern city of Genoa, said the girls, some as young as seventeen, came to him in desperation.

He said he tried to dissuade them from having an abortion which is condemned as a sin by the Vatican.

But he said his actions were preferable to leaving the girls in the hands of back-street abortionists or violent pimps.