By NICOLE WINFIELD, PAOLO SANTALUCIA and COLLEEN BARRY Associated Press
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican says Pope Leo XIV will be admitted to the hospital on Tuesday in the late morning, ahead of surgery to remove a lung nodule discovered during recent medical tests.
The Vatican press office said the surgery will require a weeklong recovery in the hospital.
Leo revealed the discovery of the nodule during his Sunday noon prayer and said he was following doctors’ advice to have it removed. The Vatican press office said Monday that no particular issue precipitated the tests, denying Italian media reports suggesting an inflammation had prompted Leo to have the checkup.
On Monday, it was business as usual at the Vatican. The 71-year-old Leo presided over an audience with members of a Rome-based charity, the Circolo San Pietro, and received a donation from them. He spoke in a strong, clear voice, praising their service and sacrifice. The crowd gave him a rousing round of applause afterward.
He had six other private audiences, made three appointments and the Vatican released a letter he had penned to the outgoing dean of the College of Cardinals, thanking him for his service. The letter was signed on Sunday.
In the afternoon, he was expected to continue his audiences and, if time, rejoin a weeklong conference he convened on ministering to families.
The surgery, though, was unexpected and took participants of the family conference by surprise. Leo was supposed to have presided over a Wednesday Mass and the final session in the afternoon, but now will be a no-show.
“Of course, it comes as a surprise to all of us that the Holy Father needs to be hospitalized for a few days for an intervention,” said Quebec Cardinal Gérald Cyprien Lacroix. “But it will not change what we’re doing.”
The pope’s absence, though, has created a change in program, in that the final report summarizing the participants’ work will now be delayed.
Leo had summoned the presidents of bishops conferences around the world for a week of discussion about how one of Pope Francis’ most important and controversial documents is being implemented.
“The Joy of Love” aimed to help the church better minister to families coping with today’s challenges, including poverty and war but also divorce and LGBTQ+ children. It was controversial because Francis opened the door to letting divorced and civilly remarried Catholics have access to the sacraments.
A first medical event for the papacy
Leo’s surgery marks the first major health event of his 17-month pontificate. It was significant because the pope himself revealed the news, in perhaps the most public way possible: at the end of his Sunday noon blessing, with thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square.
The Vatican has for centuries zealously guarded the pope’s health and has often sent out confusing information, or none at all, about papal illnesses. Pope Francis tried to change that by being upfront about his frailties and musing on his eventual death. But even during his pontificate, information was tightly controlled.
Leo’s decision and reveal suggested an unusual level of transparency by the American pope.
“I really appreciated yesterday at the end of the Angelus, he himself said, ‘This is what’s going on — very transparent — and ask for prayers,'” Lacroix said.
A lung nodule is a small abnormal area measuring less than 3 centimeters (1 inch) that sometimes appears on a CT scan of the chest or abdomen. Often, the scans are done to investigate trauma or a lung infection, unrelated to a lung cancer screening. A nodule can be benign or malignant, and oftentimes surgical removal is recommended to ascertain whether it is cancerous since performing a lung biopsy by needle can be difficult.
Oncologists say if the nodule turns out to be cancerous, Leo’s prognosis is “excellent” since it will have been removed at an early stage.
Unlike his predecessor Pope Francis, whose decade-long respiratory problems made him speak in a whisper, Leo tends to project his voice and frequently sings his prayers.
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Barry reported from Milan
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