Pope Leo Comes Through Lung Cancer Surgery, and a Church Kneels to Pray

Pope Leo XIV came through surgery Tuesday to remove a cancerous tumor from his right lung, and the Vatican says the operation went as planned. The first American pope is 71, as The Associated Press and ABC News reported, he leads a church of more than a billion people, and for a few hours on Tuesday millions of them were on their knees.

What the doctors found

Surgeons at Rome's Gemelli hospital removed the entire lower lobe of the pope's right lung, Catholic News Service reported, citing a Vatican medical report. Vatican News and ABC News reported the same. Tissue examined during the procedure confirmed adenocarcinoma, as preoperative tests had suspected, a cancer that begins in the cells lining certain internal organs.

"The Holy Father was in the operating room for about three hours; the surgery itself lasted approximately 90 minutes. The surgery was successful, and there were no complications," the Vatican press office said late Tuesday.

Doctors used a thoracoscope, a small video camera, and performed what the Vatican called a "radical surgery," removing the whole lobe to make sure the tumor and surrounding tissue were taken out. A Vatican source said early post-operative test results should be ready late Wednesday, Oct. 14. The report was based on statements from the pope's personal physician, Dr. Luigi Carbone, and lead surgeon Dr. Stefano Margaritora, Gemelli's director of thoracic surgery.

The pope woke up "normally" after surgery and asked for dinner, a Vatican source told reporters.

Rome's Gemelli hospital, where Pope Leo XIV had surgery Oct. 13. The statue out front honors St. John Paul II. Photo: Blackcat / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 IT.

He told the world himself

Leo did not leave the news to leaks. After praying the Angelus on Sunday, Oct. 11, he announced the coming operation himself, telling the crowd that doctors "found a small, localized nodule in my lung. It was detected at a very early stage and is well-localized," CNS reported.

He arrived at the hospital a little after 1 p.m. Rome time Tuesday in a Fiat with "SCV 1" plates, stepped out smiling and waved to the crowd. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, said the pope sounded "very serene" when they spoke the day before. "I am worried because I certainly did not expect something like this," Parolin said, but "thank God, it was found quickly."

Cardinal Tarcisius Isao Kikuchi of Tokyo, who met with Leo on Oct. 12, told the Italian daily La Repubblica that the pope did not want to cancel his planned Nov. 6-17 trip to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru, and so "decided to immediately undergo the necessary care." Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said the pope is expected to need about a week of recovery. All of his audiences and public events are canceled until Oct. 20.

A church at prayer

As the surgery ended, Cardinal Baldassarre Reina, the papal vicar of Rome, led a rosary in the hospital chapel. Churches across Rome were invited to pray, and Masses were offered in several countries, including at St. Mary of the Angels in Chicago, the pope's hometown, and at the cathedral in Chiclayo, Peru, where he once served as bishop, according to CNS.

Outside the hospital, people left devotional items at the foot of a statue of St. John Paul II, the last pope many Americans remember facing serious illness in public.

That image matters. Our culture hides sickness and age. It treats weakness as something to manage out of sight. The church, at its best, does the opposite. A sick shepherd who tells his flock plainly what is wrong, asks for their prayers and goes into surgery smiling is preaching a sermon of his own. Christians believe life and death are in God's hands, not ours, and that suffering borne in faith is never wasted.

The Vatican's top diplomat, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, put it in human terms. Speaking in London as the diagnosis became public, he said the pope's health issues revealed him as "vulnerable like the rest of us," the Religion Media Centre reported.

What comes next

Early-stage lung cancer caught and removed is often the best version of a bad diagnosis, but the Vatican has not said whether further treatment will be needed, and it would be wrong to guess. The next public word should come with the post-operative results. Beyond that, the markers to watch are simple: whether Leo resumes public events after Oct. 20, and whether he boards the plane for South America on Nov. 6.

Protestants and Catholics disagree about a great deal, and those differences are real. But Christians of every tradition can do what Scripture tells us to do for those in authority and for the sick: pray. Pray for his recovery, for his doctors, and for a church that, for one long afternoon this week, remembered what it looks like to kneel together.

Hero photo: Edgar Beltrán / The Pillar via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped and resized. Gemelli hospital photo: Blackcat via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 IT, resized.