Pope Leo XIV will be admitted to hospital Tuesday morning to undergo surgery to remove a lung nodule discovered during recent medical examinations, the Vatican announced Monday.
The timetable for the procedure was confirmed after the 71-year-old American pontiff had a full day of meetings, hearings and appointments.
The Vatican press office also said no particular problem had precipitated the tests, denying Italian media reports suggesting inflammation had prompted the medical examination.
Leo revealed the discovery during his Sunday lunchtime prayer and said he was following doctors’ advice to remove the nodule “in the coming days.” The Vatican predicted a week-long recovery.
It was business as usual at the Vatican on Monday, with Leo presiding over six private audiences, including with the head of US military chaplains, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, and a group audience. He also made three appointments and the Vatican published a letter he wrote to the outgoing dean of the College of Cardinals.
In the afternoon, he was scheduled to join a weeklong conference he had called on ministry to families.
Leo’s operation marks the first major health event of his 17-month pontificate. It was significant because the pope himself revealed the news, perhaps in the most public way possible: at the end of his Sunday lunchtime blessing, in front of thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square.
The Vatican for centuries zealously monitored the pope’s health and often sent confusing information, if any, about papal illnesses. Pope Francis tried to change that by speaking frankly about his frailties and reflecting on his eventual death. But even during his pontificate, information was tightly controlled.
The decision and Leo’s revelation suggest an unusual level of transparency from the American pope.
A lung nodule is a small abnormal area measuring less than 3 centimeters that sometimes appears on a CT scan of the chest or abdomen. Often, the tests are done to investigate lung trauma or infection, unrelated to lung cancer screening. A nodule can be benign or malignant, and surgical removal is often recommended to determine if it is cancerous, because performing a needle biopsy of the lung can be difficult.
Oncologists say that if the nodule turns out to be cancerous, Leo’s prognosis is “excellent” as it will have been removed at an early stage.
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