VATICAN CITY — Pope Leo was diagnosed with lung cancer Tuesday, and a lower lobe of his right lung was removed during surgery, the Vatican said in a statement.
It said an examination of a nodule during the operation had confirmed a diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma. It said cancer had been “suspected by preoperative tests.”
The surgery itself lasted approximately 90 minutes, and the pope, 71, was in the operating room for about three hours. “The surgery was successful, and there were no complications,” the statement said.
The statement did not say whether the pope would undergo further treatment. A Vatican spokesperson said that the statement spoke for itself.
Lung adenocarcinoma is a common form of lung cancer. Survival rates for it vary greatly depending on the stage of the cancer and a patient’s overall health.
The information released about Leo thus far seems to indicate he has early-stage lung cancer, which is typically treated with surgery and tends to have a very high survival rate, said Dr. Sudish Murthy, a thoracic surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic.
The surgery was performed at a hospital in Rome, the Policlinico A. Gemelli. The Vatican had said previously that Leo was expected to spend about a week recovering in the hospital after the surgery and that all audiences with him would be canceled until Oct. 20.
The cancer diagnosis came only about a year and a half into Leo’s papacy. The first American pope, he was elected to lead the Roman Catholic Church in May 2025.
The pope announced during his weekly blessing and prayer in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday that doctors had advised surgical intervention after detecting a “very early-stage and well-localized” nodule during recent medical tests.
He said he still planned to travel to South America next month, and a Vatican spokesperson said those plans had not changed. The pope was aware of his condition when he spoke Sunday, the spokesperson said.
Medical advances and increasingly effective drug therapies mean that a lung cancer diagnosis is no longer a death sentence.
“You can heal from a lung tumor,” said Dr. Lorenzo Spaggiari, a thoracic surgical oncologist at the European Institute of Oncology in Milan who is not part of the pope’s medical team. A patient of his once ran the New York Marathon after having a lung removed, he said.
“The important thing is to catch it an initial stage,” Spaggiari said.
The medical bulletin did not say whether any lymph nodes had been removed, but Spaggiari said that was standard procedure.
A Vatican spokesperson said that postoperative and histological tests would be carried out in the coming days.
The hospital has a 10th-floor suite that has been reserved for pontiffs since the papacy of St. John Paul II, but it is under renovation. The pope was instead resting in a nearby suite, the Vatican said. A Vatican spokesperson said Leo had asked to eat supper.
It is unclear whether Leo was ever a smoker. When asked, the Vatican declined to respond.
There is a history of cancer in his family. The pope’s mother, born Mildred Martinez, died at age 78 after a cancer diagnosis and chemotherapy. His father, Louis Prevost, died at age 77 from colon cancer and atherosclerotic heart disease, according to a Catholic news outlet, EWTN. His brother, Louis Prevost, was once diagnosed with multiple myeloma, according to the The Tampa Bay Times.
Leo has remained physically active, even as he keeps a full schedule. He plays tennis regularly and swims at the papal retreat in Castel Gandolfo. Italian news media has reported that the newly renovated apartment in the Apostolic Palace to which the pope moved this year includes a home gym.
While hospitalized, the pope is expected to remain in charge at the Vatican unless he is incapacitated, but day-to-day decisions are to be handled by its sprawling bureaucracy. Any major decision requiring papal approval is expected to be postponed until his release.
The pope had been scheduled to preside Wednesday over the concluding Mass for a Vatican meeting about how a document on marriage and the family has been followed in the 10 years since it was issued.
Instead, the Mass will be presided over by Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, 69, who was approved by Leo last week as the new dean of the College of Cardinals, succeeding Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, 92. The dean, who coordinates the activities of his fellow cardinals, plays an important role during any papal transition.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops urged people to pray for the pope, his caregivers and others in a similar situation. “We ask the faithful to continue praying for Pope Leo’s recovery and for the doctors and staff caring for him,” the group wrote in a post on social media Tuesday.
As word of Leo’s illness spread, people took to social media to express hope for his recovery. Among them were Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said that he and his wife, Jeanette, were praying for him.
The pope was born in Chicago, but he has spent much of his life outside the United States. He served for two decades in Peru, where he became a bishop and was a naturalized citizen.
On Tuesday, before the cancer diagnosis was announced, some visitors to the hospital said they were consoled by the pope’s presence there.
A retired postal worker, Marco Benzi, 74, was there for his wife’s cancer treatment and said they felt “lucky” to have gotten a glimpse of the pope.
“She’s very faithful, very Catholic,” Benzi said of his wife, “so her interpretation is that with the pope in the building, everything will go well for her.”
A retired eye doctor waiting for an appointment outside Gemelli Hospital, Adriana Campanella, 74, said she was confident the pope would pull through. “He’s clearly young, active,” she said. “You can see that he is energetic, and he is in the best hands.
“I think he has more resources than the rest of us,” she added.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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