Pope Leo XIV celebrates Mass at the Gemelli Polyclinic the Friday after surgery to remove a cancerous nodule his from lung
On Tuesday afternoon, October 13, Pope Leo XIV had surgery at Gemelli Hosptial (the pope’s hospital) to remove a nodule from his right lung. In fact, removing the nodule required removing the lower (inferior) right lobe. A lot of people don’t realize this, but our two lungs are divided into five lobes, three on the right and two on the left. The left lung is slightly smaller to accommodate the location of heart. Shortly after, the Vatican confirmed that Pope Leo had adenocarcinoma, a type of lung cancer that is not limited to only those who smoke. As far as I can confirm, Pope Leo is not and never has been a user of tobacco products of any kind.
Dr. Stefano Margaritora is the chief thoracic surgeon at Gemelli and he preformed the pope’s surgery as the lead of a team of doctors using a video-assisted technique. A joint statement issued by Dr. Margaritora and Dr Luigi Carbone, who assisted in the surgery, said that the “examination [of the nodule during surgery] confirmed the diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma, as suspected by the perioperative tests.” The statement went on to say that “The Holy Father was in the operating room for about 3 hours; the surgery itself last about 90 minutes. After the surgery, the pope woke up as expected and, following a brief period of observation, returned to his room on the 10th floor.”
According to medical experts in the U.S. interviewed by National Pubic Radio who perform the procedure regularly, though none were personally involved in the Holy Father’s care, the prognosis for Leo is very good. Adenocarcinoma is a common cancer and, when caught early, the patient is likely to enjoy a full recovery. The fact that surgery was the first therapeutic strategy to address the nodule is, apparently, a good sign, because it mean the doctors are confident that the cancer is in a very early stage and can be removed cleanly.
Of course, that didn’t stop some people from speculating that this might indicate a short papacy for Leo. The Associated Press ran an article entitled “Questions swirl about pope’s future and what he knew when praying at a French shrine famed for cures,” in which journalist Nicole Winfield writes, “When Pope Leo XIV was elected after the pained finale of Pope Francis’ pontificate, there was hope that a younger, healthier pope would be able to guide the Catholic Church for quite some time before age and ailments slowed him. Leo’s lung cancer diagnosis announced Tuesday has thrown a question mark into that scenario and his pontificate.” A common cancer removed by surgery with a very positive prognosis, and it seems people want to put the man in his grave already.
And, honestly, the question on what Leo knew before he visited what Winfield describes only as “a French shrine” (she’s talking about Lourdes, for pete’s sake, the most popular shrine in all of Europe!) sounds like a desperate attempt to create a conspiracy of silence of some sort. Did Leo know he likely had cancer prior to visiting Lourdes, the shrine where over seven thousand physical healings have been claimed? If he did, why didn’t he say so? And is that why he went there? Was he begging Mary’s prayers for a miraculous healing when he knelt before her statue at the grotto? What dark and mysterious motives reside behind the curtain of secrecy that hides the truth of Leo’s apparently compromised health from the curious of our celebrity culture? Oh, the tangled web we weave! Blarney! Pathetic! A hystrionic attempt to create a headline where their is none.
I recall when Peter Hebblethwaite’s book The Next Pope: A Behind-The -Scenes Look at the Forces That Will Choose The Successor to John Paul II and Decide the Future of the Catholic Church came out. Hebblethwaite was a fierce critic of St. John Paul the Great and, when I read the book, I couldn’t help get a sence of wishful thinking on the part of the very liberal English Catholic who accused John Paul of governing from the “extreme right-wing.” The Amazon review of The Next Pope begins: “The question of who will succeed the aging and frail Pope John Paul II is increasingly pressing for Catholics and non-Catholics alike.” Well, that “increasingly pressing” question of who would succeed the “aging and frail” pope would have to wait another decade before it was answered, for Hebblethewaite’s book came out in 1995 and John Paul passed to his eternal reward in 2005. All of the cardinals Hebblethwaite identified as papabile, that is, contenders for the papal throne, were out of the running by the time John Paul’s papacy ended, the third-longest in the history of the Church. By then, it was obvious that the German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was the one to succeed the Polish pope. I don’t intend this in a disrespectful way, but it’s a supreme irony that Hebblethwaite himself died more than a decade before John Paul, in 1994, a year before his speculative book came out.
So, while the Associated Press seems intent to prognosticate on how Leo’s cancer will impact his papacy, the end of which will doubtless be upon us in no time at all, it is only that – prognostication. At the time of this writing, the medical experts are anticipating a full recovery for Leo, and given his historically robust health and active lifestyle (he plays tennis weekly), I suspect and hope the first American pope has a long road ahead of him, and one that proves not too winding.
A Prayer for Pope Leo XIV’s recovery:
Lord Jesus, who bore our sorrows on the cross, look with tender love upon Your vicar on earth. Renew his spirit, restore his health if it be Your will, and guide him with the wisdom of Your Holy Spirit, that he may continue to lead Your flock with courage and unwavering faith. Fill his injured lungs with Your Holy Spirit, making him strong and healthy, and removing any trace of illness. Guide the actions of his doctors, nurses, and caregivers, giving them wisdom and knowledge. Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church and Health of the Sick, intercede for your son, our Holy Father, and wrap him in your mantle of care.
We entrust him to Your divine mercy, O God, and pray for his complete healing and a long life in service of Your Son and His Church. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.
