Pope Leo XIV walked out of Rome's Gemelli Hospital unaided on Saturday, four days after surgeons removed the lower lobe of his right lung in an operation that confirmed a diagnosis of lung cancer, according to CNN. Smiling and waving to a crowd of well-wishers, the 71-year-old pontiff brought to an end an extraordinary week that began with his own startling announcement to the faithful in St Peter's Square and included a phone call with Vladimir Putin from his hospital bed.
His doctors, personal physician Dr Luigi Carbone and chief surgeon Professor Stefano Margaritora, said the Holy Father had been cleared to leave after morning blood tests and a chest X-ray. "Based on the blood tests and chest X-ray performed this morning, and after evaluating his clinical condition, the Holy Father has been deemed fit for discharge," the pair said in a joint statement. The speed of his discharge — four days after a major thoracic operation — underlined the success of the surgery, which the Vatican has said proceeded without complications.
A walk-out cheered by well-wishers
Leo left the hospital on foot, pausing to greet the crowd gathered outside the Gemelli gates. Among those he met was a 13-year-old Ukrainian girl who handed him a stuffed toy — a small, human moment that set the tone for a discharge choreographed to reassure the world's Catholics that their pope is on the mend.
The Vatican on Friday had released the first images of the pontiff since his surgery, showing him standing upright at an altar in the hospital's chapel, dressed in green vestments. The photographs were widely read as a deliberate signal of stability, aimed at calming speculation during the days of silence that typically follow a papal hospital stay. They appear to have worked: Saturday's walk-out, unassisted and apparently energetic, offered the clearest possible answer to anyone wondering how the 71-year-old was faring.
The public will see more of him soon. The Vatican has confirmed that Leo will lead the Sunday Angelus prayer on 18 October from the window of the papal apartment overlooking St Peter's Square — his first scheduled public appearance exactly one week after he told the faithful, in that same square, that he would need surgery. The Angelus, a brief midday blessing, is the lightest possible diary entry, but its symbolism is weighty: the first American pope back at his window.
The operation and what doctors found
The surgery took place on Tuesday 13 October, when surgeons removed the lower lobe of Leo's right lung. According to the Holy See press office, the operation lasted about 90 minutes — brief by the standards of thoracic surgery — and was successful, with no complications reported. Analysis of the removed tissue confirmed what doctors had feared when they first spotted a suspected nodule: pulmonary adenocarcinoma, the most common form of lung cancer.
Remarkably, it was Leo himself who broke the news. On Sunday 11 October he addressed the crowds in St Peter's Square and told them he would need surgery — an act of personal disclosure almost without precedent in the modern papacy, where pontiffs' ailments were historically shrouded in secrecy. The candour has defined the week, from the detailed daily bulletins to the joint statement of his two doctors on the day of discharge.
One thing the Vatican has not said is the stage of the cancer — and it has offered no prognosis beyond the successful surgery and the clean discharge. That silence is not unusual: staging depends on detailed pathology, and doctors are typically cautious in the first days after surgery. What is known is that the disease was caught while still operable, and that the 71-year-old is, by all accounts, in unusually good physical shape for a pope, with a personal trainer and a love of tennis and swimming. Leo, the first American pope, was elected only last May at the age of 69, making this the first serious health test of a young pontificate.
A working patient behind hospital walls
If the image of a convalescing pope suggested rest, the reality inside the Gemelli was anything but. While hospitalised, Leo held a telephone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, during which — according to the Vatican — he raised the plight of civilians in the Ukrainian city of Oleshky. He also met aides and celebrated Mass, with Friday's photographs showing him in green vestments at the hospital chapel altar, presiding over the liturgy in the middle of his recovery.
