Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
pope francis speaks into a microphonePope Francis speaks during his general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican March 29, 2023. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

Editor's note: America is now reporting that Pope Francis was taken to the hospital after complaining of chest pains. 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis went to Rome’s Gemelli hospital March 29 for “some previously planned tests,” the Vatican press office said, providing no further details.

In a late January interview with the Associated Press, Pope Francis had said that the diverticulitis, or bulges in his intestinal wall, had “returned,” but he insisted he was in good health for his age, which is 86.

Pope Francis spent 10 days in Gemelli hospital in July 2021 after undergoing a three-hour surgery that included a left hemicolectomy, which is the removal of the descending part of the colon, a surgery that can be recommended to treat diverticulitis.

Pope Francis went to Rome’s Gemelli hospital March 29 for “some previously planned tests,” the Vatican press office said, providing no further details.

Three days after surgery, the Vatican said, “the final histological examination has confirmed a severe diverticular stenosis with signs of sclerosing diverticulitis,” a hardening of the tissue. The statement seemed to indicate that the biopsy showed no cancerous cells, although it did not say so explicitly, and rumors began.

Interviewed by the Reuters news agency in July 2022, the pope was asked about rumors that doctors had found cancer.

According to Reuters, Pope Francis laughed and said: “They didn’t tell me about it. They didn’t tell me.”

But, really, he said, “they explained everything to me well -- full stop.”

The cancer rumor, he said, “is court gossip. The court spirit is still there in the Vatican. And if you think about it, the Vatican is the last European court of an absolute monarchy.”

The latest from america

Pope Leo XIV waves to the crowd in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican as they join him for the recitation of the Angelus prayer and an appeal for peace hours after the U.S. bombed nuclear enrichment facilities in Iran on June 22. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
“Let diplomacy silence the guns!” Pope Leo XIV told the crowd in St. Peter’s Square a few hours after the United States entered the Iran-Israel war by bombing three of Iran’s nuclear sites.
Gerard O’ConnellJune 22, 2025
Paola Ugaz, a Peruvian journalist who helped expose the abuse committed by leaders of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, gives Pope Leo XIV a stole made of alpaca wool during the pope's meeting with members of the media on May 12 in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
Pope Leo XIV’s statement was read at the premiere of a play about the Peruvian investigative journalist Paola Ugaz, who was subject to death threats because of her reporting on sexual abuse.
Gerard O’ConnellJune 21, 2025
Bishop Micheal Pham, center, leads an inter-faith group as they enter a federal building to be present during immigration hearings on June 20 in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
About a dozen religious leaders from the San Diego area, including Bishop Michael Pham, visited federal immigration court on Friday “to provide some sense of presence.”
In a time of increasing disaffiliation from and disillusionment with the institutional church, a new theological perspective on the church is needed—one that places Jesus’ own teaching at the center.
Roger Haight, S.J.June 20, 2025