That's the message Italy's prime minister wants Catholic priests to preach from their pulpits to help him stamp out rampant tax evasion robbing the state of sorely needed cash.

"A third of Italians heavily evade taxes," Romano Prodi lamented in an interview with Italy's prominent Catholic magazine, Famiglia Cristiana, widely quoted in Wednesday's newspapers.

"Why, when I go to Mass, is this issue almost never touched on in the homilies?"