At twelve o’clock sharp, under a grey and dreary morning over Rome, the window of the papal apartment opened and St. Peter’s Square erupted in a long, grateful ovation. Leo XIV, who had left the Gemelli Polyclinic on Saturday afternoon, reappeared in public for the first time since Sunday the 11th, when he himself announced from that very spot that he needed surgery for a pulmonary nodule. Some fifteen thousand faithful, according to the estimates released, filled the square.
The Pontiff underwent surgery on Tuesday the 13th, when surgeons from Professor Stefano Margaritora’s team removed the lower lobe of his right lung, affected by an adenocarcinoma. During his hospital stay he celebrated Mass, performed respiratory physiotherapy and continued to sign appointments, although he received no audiences, as Specola reported in InfoVaticana.
The denarius and the trap
The Pope focused on the Gospel of the twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, which this year displaces the feast of St. Luke: the Pharisees’ crafty question about the tribute and Christ’s celebrated reply, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” (Mt 22, 21).
Leo XIV invited the faithful to read the phrase in its original context, that of an ambush laid in bad faith. Jesus’ answer, he explained, is shrewd because it evades the trap and exposes the duplicity of those who sought to make him fall. In Christ, he added, we see a God who does not shun history but enters into it; his Kingdom respects human offices and responsibilities, yet demands that we live without compromise, apart from twisted ambitions and unjust interests, seeking first the Kingdom of God and his justice.
He then dwelt on an ironic detail of the account: the self-interested praise the emissaries offer the Master, acknowledging him as sincere and incorruptible while they set the snare. That portrait, he concluded, accurately describes the one who gives each his due: someone “without fear or hypocrisy, free for the good”. He commended the faithful to the intercession of the Virgin and prayed the Marian prayer with them.
One hundred years of World Mission Day
After the Angelus, the Pope recalled that the Church was celebrating the hundredth World Mission Day, this year under the theme “One in Christ, united in mission,” chosen by himself, and invited everyone to reflect on the vast missionary history written over a century. His appearance at the window was, in fact, the only papal intervention planned for the centenary day.
“I will gradually resume my activity”
Only then did he speak about himself. With a firm voice he thanked the prayers received during his hospitalization and expressed particular gratitude to the doctors, nurses and all the staff at Gemelli. He confessed that the illness had made him feel in a special way the closeness of all who endure suffering and pain. Having overcome what he called a delicate phase, he announced that he would return to his schedule gradually, with the help of God and the prayers of the faithful. He bid farewell with a “thank you all and happy Sunday” that the square returned with sustained applause.
The medical team considers the Pontiff’s progress satisfactory and sees, from a clinical standpoint, no obstacles to the planned November trip to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru, provided recovery continues on course. The interreligious meeting in Assisi on 27 October, however, remains uncertain: the Vatican has never officially confirmed the Pope’s presence.
The full text of the address can be consulted on the official website of the Holy See.