Pope Leo’s Lung Operation Concluded Successfully
The Vatican says the surgery to remove a nodule from the 71-year-old’s lung “concluded successfully, on time and as expected, and the Holy Father returned to his room”. He announced the operation himself from the balcony after Sunday’s Angelus, saying the growth was “contained” and caught “at a very early stage”. His diary is clear to 20 October.
Popes have historically concealed illness, which is why announcing it himself, in person, in St Peter’s Square, is the part that surprised Rome. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, was candid about it: “Am I worried? Yes, because I certainly wasn’t expecting anything like this” — while saying cardinals had been struck by the Pope’s “serenity”. Cardinal Kikuchi Tarcisio Isao of Tokyo said he had felt nothing wrong physically and had moved quickly because he is due in Latin America in early November, including Peru, where he served as a missionary and then bishop. Crowds waited outside the Gemelli hospital, where the thoracic surgery team operated. The Vatican is careful to say there were no symptoms and that nodules are frequently not cancerous, though they are tested once removed. What to watch is not the surgery but the diary: whether the Peru trip holds will say more about his recovery than any statement.