10/21/2026
Pope Leo XIV has been diagnosed with lung cancer, the Vatican confirmed. The 71-year-old underwent surgery at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital on 13 October, with doctors removing the lower lobe of his right lung. Tests confirmed lung adenocarcinoma. The surgery was successful, with no complications.
Earlier this year, Leo quoted Gandalf in his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. In paragraph 213, he drew on Tolkien’s words from The Return of the King while discussing our responsibility to do good, even when problems seem overwhelming:
“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.”
Wishing him strength and a smooth recovery.
