With hymns echoing through marble halls and incense in the air, it was meant to be another quiet morning at St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. But an unknown person stormed the Altar of Confession (one of the holiest places in Catholicism) and urinated on it in front of a shocked congregation of worshippers and tourists on Friday at 9 a.m. Mass took a bizarre turn.
The man first passed the altar in silence before suddenly getting up on it, letting his pants drop, and then…urinating! As others gasped and crossed themselves, security guards hurried to grab him and haul him away. Videos of the desecration had already gone viral by that point.
Pope Francis was reportedly ‘shocked’ to learn of the act, according to Fox News, though the Vatican is yet to issue an official statement. The man was taken into custody by the Vatican Gendarmerie and later handed over to Italian authorities, according to Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni. Although the man’s identity has not been made public, early reports indicate that he may be mentally ill; Vatican insiders say that news could have an impact on how the Church runs under Canon Law.
The Altar of Confession (believed to be above St. Peter’s tomb) is the focal point of the most popular church in the world. Popes have held Mass there for centuries, and countless pilgrims visit there every year to pray. The symbolic harm caused by the desecration extends well beyond the gleaming walls of the basilica itself. Any act that causes scandal in a holy place immediately suspends public worship until the site is restored to holy status per Canon 1211 of the Code of Canon Law. To fix the altar’s purity, a penitential rite (basically, a purification ceremony) will need to be done.
VATICAN CITY—CONFIRMED that a man desecrated the Papal Altar of St Peter’s Basilica, at 9:30AM yesterday morning, by urinating on it in the presence of hundreds of pilgrims.
Holy Mass was being celebrated, at the time, at the Altar of the Chair.
— Bree A Dail (@breeadail) October 11, 2025
This is not the first time that a violation has happened in this location. A different man got up to the same altar earlier this year and flung over six candelabras. A naked protester who stood atop it in June 2023 had “Save children of Ukraine” scrawled across their back. The Vatican had to hold a penitential Mass shortly after. Thus, Friday’s incident fits into a worrying pattern. These breaches have become frequent despite tight security and plainclothes police patrols. Even the holiest places, it seems, are not immune to chaos.
Talks about security at places of worship, more so those that attract large international crowds, have been revived by the most recent breach. With millions of visitors each year, St. Peter’s Basilica always calls for a balance between security and ease. However, some call for greater entry controls and screening for visitors who act oddly after multiple acts of vandalism and invasion. It also feeds into a wider discussion about visitor behavior and respect for sacred sites. Governments all over the world have begun to crack down on disruptive acts at places of prayer or cultural attractions, from Japan’s temples banning tourists for poor manners to Venice fining swimmers in its canals.
With the goal of restoring the damaged altar’s holiness, officials at the Vatican have been asked to perform a ceremonial cleaning of the altar. It will be a time of prayer and a reminder to Catholics that even in St. Peter’s, anything is possible. No one who showed up that morning Mass will ever forget what they saw in the center of the Catholic world, even if the Vatican is officially silent!
