VATICAN CITY
Pope Leo XIV will be hospitalised in Rome on Tuesday ahead of surgery to remove a small growth on one of his lungs, the Vatican said — the first significant health test of a papacy that began 17 months ago and a moment that will briefly slow the machinery of the Roman Catholic Church.
The pope, 71, is expected to leave the Vatican late Tuesday morning for the Gemelli hospital, the Rome teaching hospital that has treated popes for decades. The Vatican press office did not specify exactly when the operation will take place. The growth, described as a small nodule, was found during a recent check-up.
Announced by the Pope Himself
Leo broke the news personally on Sunday, telling the crowd gathered in St. Peter's Square for the Angelus prayer that the nodule had been found, was well-contained and had been spotted early. "It was detected at a very early stage and is well-defined," he said, explaining that his doctors deemed it advisable to intervene and that he had decided to follow their advice and have it removed.
A lung nodule is a small, localised mass of tissue. Most are not cancerous: the American Thoracic Society says fewer than 5 per cent of lung nodules overall prove to be cancer, although the risk rises with age, the size of the growth and other factors such as smoking. Leo is not known to be a smoker and has no previously reported health issues. Specialists say procedures to remove such nodules are usually minimally invasive, sometimes performed with a thin camera tube called a thoracoscope. "The complication rate is extremely low," Dr. Federico Venuto, chief of thoracic surgery at Rome's Policlinico Umberto I hospital, told Reuters.
A Week in Hospital, a Cleared Calendar
The Vatican has said Leo's recovery is expected to take about a week in hospital, and all of his public events have been cancelled until October 20. The institution does not stop while a pope is in a hospital bed: the Curia, the Church's central administration, continues to function as normal. What pauses is anything that requires the pope's own signature — appointments, decrees and decisions that only he can make will wait until he is back at his desk.
Leo gave no sign of slowing down on the eve of his hospitalisation. He worked through a full Monday schedule of back-to-back meetings and a gathering of bishops and church leaders at the Vatican, speaking, witnesses noted, in a firm, clear voice at his only public event of the day. Italy's prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, was among the leaders who publicly offered him support as he faces the procedure.
Young for a Pope, and Determined to Travel
At 71, Leo is relatively young for a pope — he was elected by the world's cardinals in May 2025 — and is known to be physically active, including playing tennis. That contrasts sharply with the final years of his predecessor, Francis, who died in April 2025 at 88 after repeated hospitalisations and a long decline in health that kept the world's attention fixed on the Gemelli's tenth floor for weeks at a time.
Leo appears intent on a short interruption rather than a long convalescence. In the same Sunday address in which he announced the surgery, he pledged to go forward with his planned Latin America trip: an 11-day tour of Uruguay, Argentina and Peru scheduled for November 6 to 17. It would be the first major international journey of his papacy, and the Vatican has given no indication it is in doubt.
For now, the focus is narrower: a Tuesday-morning drive across Rome, an operation the Vatican describes as advisable rather than an emergency, and a week of recovery. Updates on the pope's condition are expected from the Vatican press office once the surgery is complete.
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