Lung Cancer
Pope Leo XIV has lung cancer after surgeons remove part of his lung in Rome, the Vatican says.
Leo, 71, told crowds at St. Peter's Square on Sunday that a routine checkup had turned up the nodule. It was "well-contained" and caught early, he said, and he'd decided on his doctors' advice to have it removed, The Guardian reported. Surgeons took it out Tuesday.
The Vatican confirmed the pope has lung cancer after the operation at Gemelli Hospital in Rome. Doctors removed the lower lobe of his right lung during a 90-minute procedure, the Vatican said in a medical bulletin. Tests on the tissue confirmed lung adenocarcinoma, the most common form of the disease, NPR reported. Surgeons took the full lobe "to ensure the procedure was radical," the Vatican said, according to BBC News.
Crowds waited for hours outside Gemelli. When Leo's car pulled up Tuesday, they cheered and waved as it passed, BBC News reported. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Catholic, said he and his wife were "united in prayers" for the pope. Albanese wished him a quick recovery, calling him "a voice for peace, humanity and reason in our modern world," The Guardian reported.
Leo spent a "peaceful night" in the hospital after surgery. He's expected to stay about a week, the Vatican said. Doctors had generally considered him fit, with no signs of infection or illness beforehand. Weekly, he works out, plays tennis and rides horses at the papal retreat in Castel Gandolfo, NPR reported. In Florida, his brother Louis is hospitalized with cancer. Their mother died of cancer in 1990.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, called the diagnosis "a bolt out of the blue." Monday night, he found Leo calm when they spoke. "We spoke with great serenity," Parolin told Rai News, according to The Guardian.
The Vatican cleared his schedule through October 20. Leo still plans to travel to South America in November, a 12-day trip covering 10 cities including Peru, where he once served as a missionary and bishop, the Guardian and BBC News reported.
Doctors are running further tests to check whether the cancer has spread, a Vatican source told Agence France-Presse, according to BBC News and DW.
Francis, Leo's predecessor, spent more than five weeks at Gemelli in 2025 being treated for pneumonia before he died at home that April, The Guardian reported.