Pope Leo XIV celebrated mass on Friday at the hospital where he is recovering from a lung cancer operation, as seen in the first images of him released by the Vatican since the procedure.

The images showed the 71-year-old Chicago-born pope in front of a makeshift altar in a room on the 10th floor of the Rome hospital, dressed in a green vestment.

He appeared relaxed and in good form in the two photos released, standing with his private secretary, Peruvian priest Edgard Rimaycuna, at his side.

“He celebrated with the medical and nursing staff of Gemelli, some people who were present there, who were clearly off duty at that moment,” the Vatican press office said, adding that members of the police also joined.

“He thanked all the staff, doctors, nurses, orderlies, for their service and their closeness to people, for their care of people’s fragility, and in particular, evidently, for the care, attention, and treatment given to him in these days,” the press office said.

The pope is expected to lead the traditional Angelus prayer on Sunday, but a Vatican source would not say whether it would be from the hospital, or from the Vatican.

The Angelus prayer is traditionally recited by the pope every Sunday from the window of the Apostolic Palace overlooking St Peter’s Square, to crowds of faithful gathered below.

‘Good recovery’

Leo was admitted Tuesday to Rome’s Gemelli hospital, north of the Vatican, where he underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumour in his right lung.

Doctors have said that his recovery is progressing normally, but ongoing tests will determine the future course of his treatment.

On Thursday, his doctors said that a chest X-ray indicated “good recovery of the operated lung”.

On Friday, they said tests had shown “a steady improvement in his general condition”.

They said he was now carrying out “his normal daily activities completely independently”.

Test results to determine whether the cancer has spread are still pending.

“Morale is good, that’s obvious. And the recovery as well because the pope has been able to celebrate mass,” the Vatican source said.

The press office has not given an update to the possible timing of the pope’s discharge from hospital, repeating a doctor’s original statement that his recovery would take about a week.

Were Leo to recite the Angelus from the window of the Gemelli hospital, it would not be a first for a pope.

In February 6, 2005, 84-year-old John Paul II appeared at the hospital window while recovering from flu-related respiratory issues, as an aide beside him read out the Angelus prayer.

Pope Francis on July 11, 2021, then 84, also gave the prayer from the hospital window after surgery on his colon, telling the assembled crowd: “I am glad to be able to keep the Sunday Angelus appointment, even here.”

Also on Friday, the Vatican released a selection of letters and drawings sent by children at the hospital, including a picture of a tree “For Pope Leo”, complete with grass, sun and clouds, and a letter from an 18-year-old girl who wrote to Leo: “Better days will come for the both of us.”

A seven-year-old boy named Angelo wrote that he, too, had been on the 10th floor of the Gemelli hospital for the past 36 days for a head operation.

“My mother and I pray for you every night,” he wrote. “I hope you get well soon.”

Source:  AFP

Pope Leo had a lower lobe of his right lung removed during surgery on Tuesday and ‌was diagnosed with lung ⁠adenocarcinoma, a common form of ‌lung cancer, the Vatican said in ⁠a medical bulletin. The surgery was successful and the pope is expected to spend a week in hospital recovering. The 71-year-old pontiff is due to travel to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru on November 6, though the Vatican has not confirmed the operation date.

“The procedure was successfully completed, within the expected time and in the planned manner, and the Holy Father has returned to his room,” the Vatican press office said on Telegram.

The 71-year-old pontiff has lung adenocarcinoma, with tissue tests conducted during the operation confirming what doctors had suspected from preparatory examinations, the ​bulletin said.

Pope Leo arrived at hospital in Rome on Tuesday ahead of surgery to remove ​a small cancerous growth on one of his lungs, in the first major health issue of his 17-month tenure.

Leo, 71, said on Sunday that a small nodule had been ​found on a ‌check-up, was “well-contained” and had been spotted early.

He was ⁠expected to leave the Vatican for Rome’s Gemelli hospital late morning, the Vatican press office said, without specifying when ‌the actual operation would take place.

Leo, elected by the world’s cardinals ⁠in May 2025, is relatively young for a Church leader. He enjoys sports, including tennis, and is not known to be a smoker ​or to have had health issues previously.

The Vatican has said ‌his recovery is expected to take about a week. All his public events have been cancelled until October 20.

A nodule on the lung is a small, localised lesion ‌that can be benign. The American Thoracic Society says fewer than 5% of lung nodules overall prove cancerous, although ​risk rises with age, size, and other factors such as smoking.

Dr. Federico Venuto, chief of thoracic surgery at Rome’s Policlinico Umberto I hospital, said procedures to ​remove lung nodules are usually minimally invasive, and can sometimes involve use of a ​thin camera tube called a thoracoscope.

“The complication rate ​is extremely low,” he told Reuters.

The late Pope Francis, Leo’s predecessor, died at age 88 in April 2025 and ​was hospitalised several times as he grew frail in his later years.

Leo, who spoke in a firm, clear voice at his only public event on Monday, keeps a very busy schedule. He is due to make an 11-day tour of ⁠Uruguay, Argentina and Peru from November 6 to 17.

In the same address on Sunday when the ⁠pope announced his need ​for surgery, Leo pledged he would go forward with the trip.

Source: Reuters

Pope Leo XIV announced Sunday that he would undergo surgery “in the coming days” to remove a lung nodule that had been detected “at a very early stage”.

“The doctors believe it is advisable to intervene, and so, following their advice, I have decided to undergo surgery to have it removed,” added the 71-year-old pope after the Angelus prayer, noting that the procedure was “already scheduled for the coming days”.

Source: AFP

Pope Leo on Monday issued the clearest apology yet from a pontiff for the Catholic Church’s ‌role in slavery, acknowledging both its delay in condemning the practice and its historic involvement in legitimising it.

In a key passage of his first papal encyclical, Leo said the Church had taken centuries to fully recognise “the ​scourge of slavery” as incompatible with human dignity, calling the legacy “a wound in Christian ​memory.”

“For this, in the name of the Church, I sincerely ask for ⁠pardon,” he wrote in the wide-ranging manifesto, expressing “deep sorrow” for the suffering endured by enslaved ​people.

Leo acknowledged that Church authorities had, at times, responded to rulers by regulating and legitimising ​forms of subjugation, including the enslavement of non-Christians.

He also acknowledged that before that time, in the Middle Ages, ecclesiastical institutions had their own slaves.

He said the Church only reached a “formal, absolute and universal condemnation” of ​slavery in the 19th century, under Pope Leo XIII, after what the current pope described ​as a long period of inconsistency in teaching and practice.

PREVIOUS PAPAL STATEMENTS ON SLAVERY

The remarks mark the most ‌explicit ⁠papal admission to date of institutional responsibility, going beyond earlier statements by previous popes that focused on the actions of individual Christians rather than the Vatican itself.

Pope John Paul II, during a 1985 visit to Africa, asked forgiveness from Africans for the suffering caused by “men belonging ​to Christian nations” in ​the slave trade.

Leo’s predecessor ⁠Francis condemned the plight of modern-day slaves and formally repudiated papal documents from the 15th century which were used by colonial powers to ​give legitimacy to their actions, which included slavery.

But such statements stopped ​short of ⁠directly addressing the role of the papacy, instead framing responsibility in broader terms tied to Christians or historical circumstances.

Leo’s intervention was made in his debut encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), which addresses the ethical ⁠challenges of ​artificial intelligence and warns of new forms of exploitation ​linked to the global economy.

Genealogical research published after Leo’s election last year showed that history’s first U.S.-born pope had ​a diverse ancestry that included both enslaved people and slaveholders.

Source: Reuters