Pope Leo XIV announced the operation himself, at the Angelus on 11 October. On Tuesday, 13 October, surgeons at Gemelli removed the lower lobe of his right lung. The diagnosis, confirmed during the procedure, is lung adenocarcinoma. The Vatican called the resection “radical.” It did not publish lymph-node staging.

Surgeon Stefano Margaritora said the nodule turned up by chance, on an abdominal scan, not because the pope had respiratory symptoms. The diagnosis had been suspected before the operation and confirmed on the table. Until histological and molecular results, doctors were not talking about chemotherapy or other therapies. The medical bulletin is not clinical advice.

In hospital the pope resumed a normal diet, walked in his room and celebrated Mass. On Thursday, 15 October, he worked from the ward with an aide. The chest X-ray showed a good recovery of the remaining lung. On Saturday he returned to the Vatican. Margaritora put a full recovery from surgery at about another ten days.

The South America trip, set for 6–17 November in Uruguay, Peru and Argentina, includes dozens of flights and two helicopter legs at altitude. The surgeon said there was “no clinical reason” to cancel it. Peru’s president had earlier suggested the visit might be shortened. That remains a protocol decision, not a published medical verdict.

The New York Times set the operation against the memory of John Paul II, who kept illness away from cameras. Leo chose the other path: he said in advance that he would be operated on. AP filed the Gemelli bulletins as they appeared. The candour is about communication, not a complete medical file: lymph-node staging is not public.

At 71 the pope went back to work from hospital before he walked out the gate. The diagnosis is adenocarcinoma. The lobe is out. Post-operative recovery, on the bulletins, went without announced incidents. What treatment follows depends on tests that were not yet in the statements. Until then the November calendar stays on the table, with the caution any convalescence leaves.

Image: Alvesgaspar, facade of St Peter's Basilica, 2015, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons; archive facade, not a Gemelli ward.

Sources consulted: Pope Leo's surgery and Vatican candour - The New York Times; 'No clinical reason' pope can't travel to Latin America, surgeon says - AP.