ROME - AN ITALIAN supermarket has added a chapel to its premises so shoppers tired of browsing through the aisles can give a thought to less worldly affairs, the ANSA news agency reported on Tuesday.

The first of its kind in predominantly Roman Catholic Italy, the supermarket chapel inside the Tremestieri shopping mall, not far from the Sicilian city of Messina, was blessed by a local priest on Tuesday.

'It will allow shoppers to pray in silence even in the mall,' ANSA quoted the priest, Giuseppe Lonia, as saying. 'We aim to accommodate faith and everyday life.'

Maurizio Andronico, one of the mall managers, said the chapel would be open to clients and employees and that mass would also be held there. -- AFP