Pope Leo XIV Leaves Rome Hospital Four Days After Lung Cancer Surgery
The 71-year-old pontiff waved to a cheering crowd outside Gemelli Hospital and will lead the Angelus prayer from his apartment window Sunday. His surgeon says nothing medical rules out a November trip to South America.
Pope Leo XIV was released from Rome's Gemelli Hospital on Saturday, four days after surgeons removed a cancerous tumor from his right lung. The pope walked out through the hospital's main entrance, where a large crowd had gathered and cheered as he appeared.
He shook hands with several people along the way, then stopped to talk with a young woman who appeared to be wearing a bandage on her right arm and was holding a doll made in the image of the pontiff. Leo was smiling. Once he was in the car he waved to the crowd, and his motorcade returned to Vatican City at 3:43 p.m. local time.
The 71-year-old American-born pope had a portion of his right lung removed and was diagnosed with lung cancer earlier this week. No information about his prognosis has been made public. He had been expected to stay in the hospital until Oct. 20, but he resumed some work on Thursday, and doctors said Friday that tests confirmed "steady improvement in his recovery." On Saturday morning the Vatican announced he would go home that afternoon.
His personal physician and surgeon said in a separate statement that Leo was "deemed fit for discharge from the hospital." That judgment rested on blood test results and a chest X-ray taken Saturday morning, along with an assessment of his overall clinical condition. The Vatican also confirmed that the pope will recite the Angelus prayer from the window of the papal apartment on Sunday, his first public appearance since the operation.
The pontiff's surgeon, Dr. Stefano Margaritora, told Vatican News there is no clinical reason Leo should skip an upcoming trip to South America. The visit, planned for early November, has been in question since the pope entered the hospital. On Friday the Vatican published the names of the journalists accredited to fly on the papal plane to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru, a sign the trip appeared to be going ahead.
Margaritora also described how the cancer was found. In the interview, the surgeon said the discovery of the tumor was "entirely accidental" and that the pope had no symptoms. The tumor sat at the base of the lung, and Margaritora said that if it had been "a little higher up, it certainly would not have been seen." He said Leo "falls into the category of people who discover they have lung cancer entirely by chance," not through preventive screening but because they undergo examinations for other reasons.
Leo kept working from the hospital. The Vatican released pictures of him standing at an altar in green vestments, celebrating Mass in a small chapel at Gemelli on Friday. The Vatican said he spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin that day and "expressed his deep concern about the grave humanitarian situation in the city of Oleshky" in Ukraine. He also held separate meetings with Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, the dean of the College of Cardinals, and Cardinal Baldassare Reina, the vicar general of the Diocese of Rome.
The speed of the recovery has surprised the crowds who followed the pope's hospital stay. Saturday's scene outside Gemelli, with the pontiff on his feet, greeting well-wishers and heading back to the Vatican days ahead of schedule, offered the clearest public sign yet of how he is doing. What the Vatican has not said is what treatment, if any, will follow the surgery, and that question will matter as the November trip approaches.
