Pope Leo XIV thanks doctors and faithful at first Angelus since lung surgery

Pope Leo XIV appeared before the faithful on Sunday to lead the Angelus from the window of his apartments in the Apostolic Palace. It was his first public appearance since he left the hospital, after surgery a week earlier for a lung adenocarcinoma.

At noon, thousands of pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square greeted him with a loud ovation. The pope came to the window unaided, smiling broadly, and spoke to the faithful in a loud, clear voice.

"Having come through this delicate phase, I will now gradually resume my activities, always with God's help and your prayers," he said during the prayer.

"I want to thank all those who have prayed for me in these days. I have truly felt your support," the pope said at the end of the Angelus. He added his "special thanks to the doctors, the nurses and all the staff of the Gemelli Polyclinic," the Rome hospital where the operation was performed.

The experience, he said, had allowed him to "see in a particular way the closeness of those who are going through an illness." He closed with the words: "Thank you again, thank you all."

Leaving the hospital

The pope was discharged early in the afternoon of Saturday, October 17, four days after surgery. The Vatican announced the decision that morning, after confirming that blood tests, a chest X-ray and a clinical evaluation showed the pope was fit to leave. The announcement came from Dr. Luigi Carbone, director of the Directorate of Health and Hygiene of the Governorate of Vatican City State, and Professor Stefano Margaritora, head of the thoracic surgery team that operated on him.

The pope walked out of the hospital on his own, smiling, and went over to the people waiting outside. Among them was Varvara, a 13-year-old Ukrainian girl he had met on December 31 in St. Peter's Square, when she was about to undergo surgery for a tumor. Varvara, now recovered, had traveled from Turin to Rome hoping to pray for the pope and ended up speaking with him in person. She gave him a photograph of the embrace they had shared in the square and a stuffed toy.

At the hospital entrance, people had left candles, flowers, plants, small objects and written messages. Gemelli patients, among them Franca, Ilaria and Alessandra, watched him leave and spoke of the pope's calm and simplicity, and of the comfort his presence in the same hospital had given them during their own recovery.

Recovery and the apostolic trip

Margaritora said there were no clinical reasons to prevent the pope from making his apostolic trip to Argentina, Uruguay and Peru, scheduled for November 6 to 17. "I would say there are no clinical reasons why this trip cannot go ahead," the surgeon told Vatican media.

He said that "a couple of weeks are needed to achieve a truly complete physical recovery." At the time of the assessment, almost a week had passed since the operation. Margaritora estimated the pope could be fully recovered in about 10 days, enough time before the scheduled departure. The surgery, which removed the lower lobe of the right lung affected by the adenocarcinoma, went ahead without complications, he said, and he described the postoperative course as "truly commendable."

The Angelus message

In the message that accompanied the prayer, the pope gave a catechesis on the Gospel of Matthew. He took as his theme the teaching of Jesus: "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." He said the saying unmasks hypocrisy and teaches us to "live without compromise," putting the Kingdom of God and his justice before everything else.

"Free to do good, without fear or hypocrisy," the pope said, summing up the meaning of the Gospel teaching and linking it to those who, like Jesus, refuse any compromise with injustice. He spoke from the window of the Apostolic Palace just a week after publicly announcing his diagnosis and his decision to have surgery.