[1/3] Pope Francis greets a nun during the weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican June 7, 2023. Portal/Yara Nardi
ROME, June 7 (Portal) – Pope Francis was admitted to a Rome hospital on Wednesday for another abdominal operation under general anesthesia, this time to repair a hernia most likely caused by scarring from an operation in 2021.
86-year-old Francis gave no indication during his general audience in St. Peter’s Square that he would be hospitalized for a scheduled operation. There he was in a good mood, stopping to kiss babies and lingering to chat with newlyweds.
Shortly after, he left the Vatican in a plain white Fiat 500L bound for the Catholic-run Gemelli Hospital, a short drive away, which has a tenth-floor suite reserved for popes.
The operation, scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, will be Francis’ third hospitalization since the cardinals elected the Argentine as the first Latin American pope in 2013, and is the latest in a string of health problems in recent years.
A statement, unusually detailed by Vatican standards, said he was expected to stay “a few days” to allow “normal progress and full recovery of his functions after the operation.”
It said the surgery was necessary to repair a laparocele, a hernia that sometimes forms over a scar that usually results from a previous surgery. It is more common in older people and can also be caused by obesity or weakness of the abdominal wall muscles.
The Pope’s medical team had decided in recent days that surgery was needed as the condition was causing painful intestinal obstructions. It is known that Francis is afraid of the negative effects of general anesthesia, which is also more common in the elderly.
The statement said the Pope would undergo a laparotomy, an open abdominal surgery, and use a prosthesis to reconstruct the abdominal wall.
In July 2021, he had part of his colon removed as part of surgery to treat a painful bowel condition called diverticulitis. He said earlier this year that the disease had come back and was affecting his weight.
Francis spent about 40 minutes Tuesday at the same Rome hospital to undergo what the Vatican said was an “examination,” without revealing at the time that it was in fact a pre-surgery visit.
Francis was treated in the same hospital for five days at the end of March for a lung infection and was unable to go to the audience for a day last month due to a fever.
Because of persistent knee pain, the Pope often uses a wheelchair or a cane to walk. Last year he didn’t want to have an operation on his knee because the general anesthesia for his bowel surgery had caused unpleasant side effects.
Despite his health issues, Francis has a busy schedule. The Vatican on Saturday announced plans that from August 31 to September 4 he would visit Mongolia, one of the more remote places he has traveled to date.
Before that, he will visit Portugal from August 2nd to 6th to attend World Youth Day in Lisbon and visit the Shrine of Fatima. The Vatican released an official timetable for the trip Tuesday, indicating it has been confirmed.
Additional reporting by Keith Weir, Federico Maccioni and Crispian Balmer, edited by William Maclean
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