Two Eucharistic profanations reported during Sunday Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica

VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — An Italian journalist reported two alleged Eucharistic profanations during Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica.

On February 8, during the 10:30 a.m. Mass celebrated in the central nave of St. Peter’s Basilica by Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, Italian journalist Andrea Zambrano reported witnessing two separate Eucharistic profanations that occurred due to the negligence of the security staff.

According to Zambrano, before Communion a female speaker addressed the congregation in four languages—French, English, Spanish and Italian—saying: “It is the moment of Communion. The faithful who are in a state of grace may approach and consume in front of the priest.” Zambrano wrote that this warning was apparently intended to prevent abuses but that what he subsequently observed contradicted it.

The first profanation involved a man who received multiple consecrated Hosts. Zambrano stated that while he and his wife were standing “two or three rows back” in the Communion line, they saw “a man holding in his cupped hand at least two or three particles” who then returned to his place in the pew. There the man “gave them to other people who were waiting, who consumed the Body of Christ directly from him.” He added that he was unable to intervene because of the distance and the circumstances. He also questioned how the priest distributing Communion “gave three Hosts to a single person.”

After returning to his seat, Zambrano reported a second profanation occurring nearby. He wrote that an Asian woman was holding a consecrated Host and approached a small child, approximately four or five years old, who was seated with her father. According to Zambrano, the woman “practically put the Host into the child’s mouth.” He recounted reacting by shouting “No!” when the frightened child appeared about to spit out the Host. Zambrano wrote that the mother seemed unsure whether to retrieve the Host or leave it, and that he then gestured to the child to continue consuming it in order to avoid further profanation.

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“What was I supposed to do at that point?” Zambrano wrote, adding that he felt like “an awkward and improvised gendarme” and lamenting that the faithful should not be placed in a position of monitoring others during Mass.

Zambrano further observed that security personnel in the Basilica, whom he described as vigilant in preventing photography—reportedly repeating “Hey man, no photo please” to visitors near the tomb of St. John Paul II—were not present near the priests during Communion. He suggested that if security is to be enforced, personnel should stand beside those distributing Communion to ensure that “profanations such as those we witnessed” do not occur. The journalist published his account in La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana.

He also argued that the practice of receiving Communion on the tongue would prevent such situations, recalling that during the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI this method was customary at papal Masses.

Zambrano directly addressed Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, O.F.M. Conv., Archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica who is also the Vicar General for Vatican City and President of the Fabric of Saint Peter. The Basilica operates under his authority. Zambrano wrote that the reported profanations fall under the cardinal’s responsibility, as do “those more clamorous ones we have recently witnessed.”

As LifeSiteNews reported, various incidents happened in the last months within the Basilica that can be described as acts of desecration. Between 2023 and 2025, the Altar of the Confession was repeatedly targeted: first by a naked man shouting a pro‑Ukraine message; then by a Romanian citizen who climbed the altar and hurled candlesticks to the ground; and finally by a drunk man who stripped and urinated before the faithful. Later, a man desecrated the altar of the Blessed Sacrament Chapel during Eucharist adoration, prompting an immediate rite of reparation.

As if that weren’t enough, news was leaked on January 27 — later downplayed but confirmed by the Vatican — of top-secret work underway on the Basilica’s roof to turn a restored vantage point into a restaurant, leaving both faithful and clergy embarrassed.