A World War II mystery: Who dropped bombs on the Vatican?
An unidentified plane dropped five bombs on Vatican City on Nov. 5, 1943; four exploded, damaging Vatican offices and a mosaic laboratory, while one narrowly missed St. Peter’s Basilica. The bombing injured some people but caused no deaths, and one blast shattered a rear window of the basilica. Historian Johan Ickx discussed the attack and wartime life in the Vatican, where Pope Pius XII ordered buildings to go unheated as a sign of solidarity with people outside. The identity and motive of the attackers remain uncertain, despite a historian proposing a likely theory in 2010.
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On Nov. 5, 1943, an unidentified aircraft dropped five bombs on Vatican City, four of which exploded. No one was killed, but the attack damaged Vatican offices and narrowly missed St. Peter’s Basilica; the aircraft’s identity and motive were never officially established, though a later account offered a plausible explanation. 1
Vatican City was generally spared major bombing during World War II, even as Rome came under attack. By November 1943, the city was occupied by German forces and governed as part of the Italian Social Republic, the German-backed state led by Benito Mussolini. 1
The bombs struck the Vatican’s governatorate, mosaic laboratory, and offices used by officials of the Roman Curia. One exploded close enough to St. Peter’s Basilica to blow out a rear window; Archbishop Domenico Tardini narrowly avoided being in his office when the bombs fell. 1
The attack came after Pope Pius XII had appealed to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to spare Rome and its historic sites. Roosevelt replied that Allied aircraft had been instructed to avoid bombing Vatican City, although Allied raids on Rome continued before the city was captured in June 1944. 1
The Vatican began interviewing witnesses and examining bomb fragments. One fragment bore the final three letters “lli,” but a search for manufacturers whose names matched those letters produced dozens of possibilities. 1
The Vatican questioned the United States, Britain, Italy, and Germany, and each denied responsibility. The uncertainty also fueled wartime propaganda: one Italian newspaper claimed that Stalin had thanked Churchill for bombing the Vatican. 1
The Vatican’s investigation did not solve the mystery. In a 2010 book, author Augusto Ferrara argued that the bombs were probably dropped by an S.79 aircraft supplied by the Italian Social Republic and flown from Viterbo, north of Rome. 1
Ferrara’s account attributed the order to fascist politician Roberto Farinacci, who allegedly wanted to destroy Vatican Radio because he suspected it was transmitting military information to the Allies. Vatican historian Johan Ickx described this as a plausible explanation, rather than a definitive resolution. 1
On March 1, 1944, a British plane missed its intended target and hit the Vatican wall. That bombing killed a Vatican workman, injured an Augustinian friar, and shattered windows at the Palace of the Holy Office. 1*
The moral limits of neutrality amid wartime violence
Catholic teaching does not require taking a political side in every war, nor does it make silence automatically equivalent to complicity. But it rejects a neutrality that treats grave violence against the innocent as morally inconsequential. Pope Leo XIV’s central point is that, in some conflicts, refusing to take any stand can itself become unjust: when civilians, children, hospitals, schools, or essential infrastructure are attacked, a person cannot settle for abstract detachment or the claim “I am not involved.”
A useful distinction is between impartiality toward peoples and indifference toward wrongdoing. Pope Pius XII insisted that the Church’s moral judgment should not be driven by partisan interest: no people is immune from the danger that some of its members will be swept up in hatred. At the same time, he lamented the mistreatment of noncombatants and maintained that duties of humanity do not cease during war.
That distinction rules out two opposite mistakes. One is to excuse abuses because they are committed by one’s own side, or to condemn them only when committed by an enemy. The other is to say that, because every side may commit wrongs, there is no morally meaningful difference between protecting civilians and attacking them. Impartial moral judgment means applying the same standards to all; it does not mean withholding judgment altogether. Pius XII’s appeal to the duties owed even in wartime supports precisely this kind of nonpartisan moral clarity.
Leo XIV says that witnessing grave attacks requires more than detached analysis. He draws attention to the people who suffer: their faces, stories, and wounds. This does not mean that every observer must reach a definitive judgment about disputed facts immediately. It means that moral reflection should not reduce suffering to an abstraction or use uncertainty as a standing excuse never to respond.
The Catechism makes clear that some wartime acts cannot be excused by obedience or political necessity. Noncombatants, wounded soldiers, and prisoners must be treated humanely; deliberate violations of the laws of war and their universal principles are crimes. It adds that blind obedience does not excuse those who carry them out, and that people are morally bound to resist orders commanding genocide.
This shows why “I was only following orders,” or “I have no position,” cannot always settle the moral question. Where a person has a real ability to resist, protect, bear witness, or refuse participation in a grave wrong, doing nothing may leave a neighbor exposed to harm. A scholarly discussion of moral reasoning about war makes a related point: refusing to act can tolerate injustice passively, just as military action can inflict injustice actively. That observation is a moral argument, not a blanket instruction to use force; it highlights that inaction, too, can have consequences for others.
The call not to remain morally neutral should not be confused with a command to support a particular government, army, military campaign, or proposed intervention. The cited teaching establishes duties to recognize and oppose grave violations, but it does not by itself determine which military response, if any, is justified in a specific conflict. Nor does Leo XIV’s language say that every conflict presents the same moral situation: he speaks of some conflicts and identifies particularly grave harms that demand a response.
A stand may take forms other than joining a war or advocating armed intervention. It can include refusing to repeat propaganda or dehumanizing language, speaking truthfully about victims, supporting humanitarian relief, calling for protection of civilians, and resisting a direct command to participate in atrocities. The Catechism’s explicit requirement to resist orders commanding genocide illustrates that moral responsibility can require refusal, while Pius XII’s insistence on wartime duties of humanity points toward restraint and humane treatment even amid conflict.
A morally serious response also requires care about facts. Leo XIV calls for history—to recount events—and memory—to bear witness to lived experience. That pairing cautions against both abstraction and careless accusation: suffering must be acknowledged, while claims about what happened still require responsible judgment. The excerpt does not supply a detailed method for verifying allegations or resolving conflicting accounts, so it cannot settle a particular factual dispute on its own.
The limit is reached when neutrality becomes a way of evading an evident responsibility toward people being harmed. Catholic teaching does not demand partisan allegiance, certainty beyond the evidence, or approval of any proposed remedy. It does demand that grave violations not be normalized or excused, and that the vulnerable not disappear from moral consideration. Leo XIV’s appeal to “touch the wounded flesh” is therefore not merely an appeal to emotion: it insists that judgment about war remain answerable to the real human beings who bear its consequences.
The practical question is not simply, “Am I on one side or the other?” It is also: “Am I applying moral standards consistently, facing the suffering honestly, and doing what I reasonably can to avoid enabling or tolerating grave harm?” Where a person cannot responsibly determine every disputed fact, restraint in judgment may be appropriate. But where the wrong is clear and the ability to respond real, neutrality understood as moral indifference is no longer neutral in its effects.