Pope Leo XIV on Saturday has left (discharged) from Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, four days after surgeons removed the lower lobe of his right lung.
Video of his departure shows him smiling, waving and shaking hands with people outside the hospital. The 71-year-old pontiff was seen walking unaided outdoors and greeting well-wishers gathered outside.
Pope Leo XIV smiled and waved to cheering crowds as he left Rome's Gemelli Hospital on Saturday, four days after undergoing surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his right lung.
— CBS News (@CBSNews) October 17, 2026
The pope stopped to shake hands with well-wishers outside the hospital before departing for the… pic.twitter.com/7EnE10ck0K
the Holy Father also paused by his car to greet Varvara, a 13-year-old girl from Ukraine who has been treated for cancer in Italy. The two had first met on December 31 during an audience in St. Peter’s Square, when she was still awaiting her own operation.
Greeting Leo Saturday, Varvara said the Pope’s hug in December gave her “the strength to overcome the illness that, fortunately, I have now beaten” with the help of a Ukrainian priest interpreting. She brought a framed photograph of that December hug and a small handmade felt doll made in the pope’s likeness.
“The Holy Father was in the operating theatre for approximately three hours; the operation itself lasted about ninety minutes. The operation was successful and there were no complications,” Dr. Luigi Carbone, the Pope’s personal physician, and Professor Stefano Margaritora, the lead thoracic surgeon, said in a joint statement Saturday.
“Considering the blood tests, the chest X-ray done this morning, and evaluating the clinical picture, the Holy Father has been deemed fit for discharge,” they added.
Leo XIV’s approach to communicating about his health has brought a spotlight to the approach in what one could now call a change to the history rules of the game, highlighting the difference between his public disclosure and the secrecy associated with earlier papacies.
Pope John XXIII’s stomach cancer was disclosed after his death, and Pope John Paul II’s Parkinson’s disease was publicly described using the term “extrapyramidal syndrome.”
That history is reflected in the expression, “the pope is fine until he’s dead,” a phrase used to describe the tradition of withholding or minimizing information about a pope’s health.
Speaking Sunday, October 11, at the end of the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square, from a window of the Apostolic Palace, Leo announced doctors had found a small, localized nodule in his lung, detected at a very early stage, and that he had decided to undergo surgery in the coming days.
The pope did not mention cancer at that time. The diagnosis was confirmed during surgery on October 13 and made public that evening.
After the operation, the Pope regained consciousness normally as the doctors had predicted and was transferred back to his room on the 10th floor after a short observation period.
The Vatican reported in the following days that he had undergone respiratory physiotherapy, had begun walking around his room, had resumed eating normally, and was handling some daily activities independently, including concelebrating Mass in the hospital chapel.
Follow-up checks on October 15 found “good recovery of the operated lung” and normal test results.
The pop is now expected to recite the Angelus on Sunday, October 18, from the window of the Apostolic Palace.
