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

Our country is not only in a constitutional crisis; we are in a biblical crisis.
Terence SweeneyMay 21, 2025
A Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, by Father Terrance Klein
Terrance KleinMay 21, 2025
Pope Leo XIV meets with Vice President JD Vance after the formal inauguration of his pontificate at the Vatican on May 18. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Leo I helped to ensure that Catholicism would outlast the Roman Empire. His name is a reminder that our faith rises above contemporary politics and temporal authority.
The Gospel parable of the “wasteful sower” who casts seeds on fertile soil as well as on a rocky path “is an image of the way God loves us,” Pope Leo XIV told 40,000 visitors and pilgrims at his first weekly general audience.
Cindy Wooden May 21, 2025