Pope Leo says he will gradually resume duties after lung cancer surgery; Wednesday audience confirmed

Pope Leo XIV told thousands of people in St. Peter's Square on Sunday, October 18, that he would gradually resume his activities, five days after surgery for lung cancer, according to PBS NewsHour and CBS News. Speaking from a window of the Apostolic Palace at the Angelus, his first public appearance since the operation, the 71-year-old pope thanked the staff at Rome's Gemelli hospital. On Monday the Holy See Press Office confirmed that he will hold his weekly general audience in the square on Wednesday, October 21, Vatican News reported.

The operation and diagnosis

Leo announced at the Angelus on October 11 that a lung nodule had been found and would be removed, Al Jazeera reported. On Tuesday, October 13, surgeons at Gemelli removed the lower lobe of his right lung. The surgery confirmed adenocarcinoma, the most common type of lung cancer, according to Al Jazeera, CBS News and PBS NewsHour.

ABC News reported that doctors described the operation as successful with no complications, and that the surgery itself lasted about 90 minutes within roughly three hours in the operating room.

Testing of the tumour and nearby lymph nodes was still under way, CBS News and PBS NewsHour reported, and the results will determine whether further treatment is needed. The options named in those reports were chemotherapy, chemotherapy combined with immunotherapy, or a targeted oral drug. No prognosis has been made public, CBS News said.

Back at work, then back at the Vatican

The Vatican press office said on Thursday, October 15, that the pope had resumed his work activities and had concelebrated Mass around noon, ABC News reported. That day he met Archbishop Paolo Rudelli, the substitute of the Secretariat of State, at the hospital. His physicians, Dr Luigi Carbone and Dr Stefano Margaritora, head of thoracic surgery at Gemelli, said a chest X-ray showed good recovery of the operated lung and that his recovery was proceeding as expected, according to Al Jazeera.

He left Gemelli on Saturday, October 17, earlier than first expected, and told a reporter he was feeling "much better," Al Jazeera reported. On October 15 Al Jazeera had reported that he was expected to stay in hospital until at least October 20. Reports describe the length of the stay differently: CBS News called it a four-day stay, while Vatican News said he was discharged after five days.

What he said on Sunday

At the Angelus, according to CBS News, Leo said that with the most delicate stage now behind him he would gradually resume his activities. He also said the experience had made him feel particularly close to people living with illness or infirmity. Vatican News put the crowd at about 15,000; PBS NewsHour described it as thousands.

The schedule ahead

According to Vatican News, the pope will not go to his residence at Castel Gandolfo this week, where he has usually spent Mondays and Tuesdays, and will continue recovering at the Apostolic Palace. The press office gave no details on whether he will tour the crowd in the popemobile on Wednesday, and no indication yet on a scheduled October 27 visit to Assisi.

His next major commitment is a November 6–17 trip to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru, involving about a dozen flights and two helicopter trips to high-altitude locations, CBS News reported. Margaritora told Vatican News on Saturday that there were "no clinical reasons" the trip should not go ahead and that he expected a full recovery from the surgery in about ten more days. Reuters, as carried by U.S. News & World Report, reported on October 19 that it remained unclear whether the trip would go forward.

Leo, born in Chicago, is the first pope from the United States, and the illness is the first major health event of his 17-month pontificate, CBS News reported.