By Crispian Balmer
VATICAN CITY, Feb 16 (Reuters) - The Vatican is stepping up security inside St Peter's Basilica after recent acts of vandalism, but wants to avoid the "militarisation" of one of the most visited churches in the world, a senior clergyman said on Monday.
Cardinal Mauro Gambetti said more than 20 million people had passed through the Basilica over the past year and that recent incidents were "very limited" compared with the overall volume of visitors.
"We are thinking, and now we will do something, for further protection of some spaces," Gambetti told a press conference about the forthcoming 400th anniversary of the dedication of the cathedral, one of the largest in Christendom.
Visitors are currently screened before entering, while 40 to 60 people provide discreet security inside. Gambetti indicated that the new measures would be low-key.
"We asked ourselves about the limit which we should go in protection, or in militarisation ... to manage everything, control everything," he said.
"We think it should remain a place that leaves people who enter the Basilica with a taste of freedom, so you can't go beyond certain limits."
Gambetti also urged journalists to avoid fuelling copycat behaviour, saying imitation had become easier in a society shaped by social media and online "tutorials".
"We think we use technology, but in reality it is technology that uses us," he said, calling for a wider effort by institutions and the media to educate people and help prevent further episodes.
Security has been under scrutiny since a string of incidents around the Basilica's main altar, which sits beneath a giant bronze-and-wood canopy built in the 17th century by a team under Baroque sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
Last October, an unidentified man was arrested after climbing onto the altar and urinating on it, while in February 2025, a man climbed onto the altar and knocked several candelabras to the ground, damaging them.
In June 2023, a Polish-born man stripped naked and climbed onto the same altar in a protest against the war in Ukraine.
Gambetti said the Vatican was mindful that some of those responsible for such acts may be highly vulnerable, and that there was a need to understand and address weaknesses present in society, adding:
"There are fragilities today that are beyond what we would have imagined even just 20 years ago."
(Reporting by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
