Patients and well-wishers alike came to offer prayers Wednesday on the grounds of the Rome hospital where Pope Leo XIV was recovering from surgery that found lung cancer.
“Hematology greets the pope” read a poster hung from one window of the hospital, Policlinico A. Gemelli. Below, a banner saying “Long Live the Pope” was laid out on a bench in the sun.
Leo, 71, is expected to spend about a week in the hospital, a huge complex in northwestern Rome. Just outside the main entrance, votive candles, prayer cards, a plaster cherub and a miniature orchid decorated a statue of Pope John Paul II. Several people filtered through, some falling to their knees.
Fernando Ibarra Mendoza, 41, read a prayer for healing in front of the statue as her 6-year-old daughter drew a card for Pope Leo with pink highlighters.
“Pope Leo needs our prayer, and the church, and the world, needs Pope Leo,” Ms. Ibarra Mendoza said. “In these dark times, we pilgrims must be near to him.”
Mariana Nicula Ancuta, 48, also stopped by the statue after her appointment.
“Gemelli is a marvelous hospital, which took out tumors in both of my breasts,” she said. “I know that he’s in the right hands, in the best hands in the world.”
Surgeons removed the lower lobe of the pope’s right lung on Tuesday after finding a cancerous nodule. The Vatican has not said whether the pope will undergo further treatment.
Simona Zanfrilli, 45, came to pray for Leo after her chemotherapy session and said that she hoped he would not require the same “devastating” treatment. Ms. Zanfrilli said she thought, though, that the pope’s diagnosis could offer fellow cancer patients comfort and even hope.
“It sounds strange,” she said, “but this morning during my treatment, I felt almost lucky. I thought: I’m in the same place, on the same floor, even, as the Holy Father.”
The cancer diagnosis came only about a year and a half into Leo’s papacy — the first American pope, he was elected to lead the Roman Catholic Church in May 2025. That weighed heavy on the mind of Giuseppe Antonio Perazzo, 76, who came to the hospital before his lunch.
Gemelli was where Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, spent weeks receiving treatment shortly before his death.
“It’s much too soon to re-elect a new Holy Father,” said Mr. Perazzo, “so I’m praying that he can recover.”
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