Pope Leo XIV’s health should not be taken “for granted”, a British senior Vatican official told the BBC.
Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s foreign minister since 2014, said the news of the Pope’s ill health was “a bit of a game changer”, adding “it’s going to make things a bit different”.
The Pope was diagnosed with lung adenocarcinoma following surgery to remove a lower lobe of his right lung.
Speaking on Tuesday after the Pope’s operation was announced, but before his cancer diagnosis, Archbishop Gallagher said: “I think we were maybe taking him a little bit for granted.”
The 71-year-old had surgery at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital on Tuesday afternoon, which the Vatican said had been “successful” and proceeded without complications.
Speaking to Radio 4’s the Sunday Programme, due to air this weekend, the Archbishop said: “It’s in some ways I think going to be a bit of a game changer after having the latter years of Pope Francis when he was in the wheelchair.
“And Pope Leo comes along and he’s sporty and he seems to be in excellent health, and now we’re told that he’s not in excellent health and things have got to be sorted out.”
Asked how it will make things different going forward, the Archbishop said church figures might have assumed “that he was not quite like the rest of us who are very aware of our vulnerabilities and the ageing process”.
He went on: “But lots of us have been through similar experiences at different times in our lives, and we’ve got through them, and so we hope it’s going to be the same case with Pope Leo.
“I am concerned. I think we’ve got to ask the question: how was it discovered? What happened?”
