By Almudena Martínez-Bordiú, Walter Sánchez Silva
October 13, 2025
02:23 p. m.
Oct. 13, 2025
02:23 p. m.
Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, Archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica and vicar general of the Pope for Vatican City, presided this Monday over a penitential rite of reparation at the main altar of the temple after a serious act of desecration on October 10.
After a penitential procession that began at 12:45 (local time), Cardinal Gambetti sprinkled holy water on the altar and incensed it to purify it.
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In the rite, attended by members of the Chapter of the Vatican basilica, “forgiveness” for the desecration was highlighted, Father Enzo Fortunato, communications director of St. Peter’s Basilica, told ACI Prensa.
On Friday, October 10, a man whose identity has not been revealed was arrested by security guards after climbing the altar of Confession, located under Bernini’s canopy, and urinating on it, before the astonished gaze of the tourists who were there.
Pope Leo XIV expressed his dismay upon learning what had happened and asked Cardinal Gambetti to carry out an act of reparation to restore sanctity to the place and ask for forgiveness for what had happened.
This is the second episode of desecration in St. Peter’s Basilica in less than a year. In February, a man severely damaged part of the main altar, breaking several candelabras, and in June 2023 an individual of Polish origin stripped naked in the same place as a form of protest against the war in Ukraine.
Almudena Martínez-Bordiú
Graduated in Journalism and Advertising from the CEU San Pablo University in Madrid. Specialized in religious information in Spain since 2015. She has been a senior correspondent for ACI Prensa and EWTN Noticias in the Vatican for two years and is currently a European correspondent based in Spain.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.