DR MARC SIEGEL: Pope Leo's lung surgery puts modern medicine alongside faith

When Pope Leo XIV visited Lourdes, France, on Sept. 26, he drank a glass of water from the spring at the Grotto of Massabielle, where St. Bernadette Soubirous reported visions of the Virgin Mary in 1858. Who knew last month that the pope might be calling on the healing waters to help in his own healing as he faces surgical removal of what the Vatican has described as "a small localized nodule" that he has said "was identified at a very early stage and well situated." The surgery will take place Tuesday, Oct. 13, followed by a week of recovery at Rome’s highly rated Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic Hospital. Small lung nodules are often detected on CT scans of the lungs. If the nodule is small and well circumscribed, and has characteristics, including irregularities that are concerning for malignancy, as may be the case here, removal can often be performed using minimally invasive techniques. POPE LEO ARRIVES AT HOSPITAL FOR SURGERY TO REMOVE LUNG NODULE The surgeon leading his medical team is Professor Stefano Margaritora, director of the Thoracic Surgery Unit at Gemelli and an expert in minimally invasive techniques. Margaritora is known for uniportal (one small incision) video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS), which is done via a scope under direct visualization. This is the procedure that will be performed on the pope. Dr. Robert Cerfolio, CEO at Pinnacle Global Health and one of the top minimally invasive lung surgeons in the world, thinks highly of Margaritora but generally prefers a robotic approach, in part because of smaller incisions and better visualization. The robot is placed between the ribs and into the chest and is controlled by the surgeon from a console. POPE LEO ANNOUNCES TUMOR ON LUNG, SURGERY PLANNED IN 'NEXT FEW DAYS' If all goes well, I would expect the Holy Father to resume normal activities fairly quickly. His recovery will no doubt be aided by the fact that, at age 71, he has maintained an active lifestyle and has generally appeared to be in good health. Lourdes is famous not only for the 72 healings officially recognized as miraculous by the Catholic Church — instantaneous healings with no medical explanation — but also for "small miracles that aren’t recognized until later." Those are the words of Fox Business anchor David Asman. Asman is his wife’s "voiturier" at Lourdes, meaning that he takes her around the sanctuary during their visits. The couple has made pilgrimages to Lourdes following a stroke affecting the right side of his wife’s brain in 2004 that left her with severe loss of strength on her left side. POPE LEO DRAWS STAGGERING 800,000 FAITHFUL TO HEART OF PARIS FOR MASSIVE OUTDOOR MASS Marta Cecilia Asman is rejuvenated spiritually at Lourdes. She watches people who come there hopeless and return home with tremendous hope, their spiritual and emotional state completely changed. "Lourdes is a miracle," she says to me in an interview for my new book, "The Angels Among Us." "Not everyone can say they are cured. For me, my hand opens and starts working again after my stroke when it isn’t supposed to. During my rehab at Burke Rehabilitation Hospital [in New York’s Westchester County], I’m told I’m not supposed to be able to walk on my own again, but I do. … Sometimes I feel I am trapped in New York City. But then I am uplifted by Lourdes, my emotional health is tied to Lourdes, and I know there is no limit to what I can do." POPE LEO CALLS OUT ‘FALSE COMPASSION’ OF MEDICALLY ASSISTED SUICIDE DURING FRENCH HOSPITAL VISIT Dr. Alessandro De Franciscis, outgoing director of the Lourdes Office of Medical Observations, tells me in an interview for the book that Lourdes is a joyful place, a place of mind-over-matter healing. "The pilgrims who travel here are malades who may not be able to get into the metro or climb a stairway or push into a department store, and yet they thrive here." The "malades" are cared for by four times as many volunteer caregivers a.k.a. "hospitaliers." CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION During his September 2026 visit to Lourdes, Pope Leo met with thousands of sick pilgrims and the hospitaliers who outnumber and care for them, celebrating the sanctuary's profound legacy of physical, spiritual and internal healing. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP And now, as he undergoes surgery with the benefit of modern medical science, it certainly won't hurt to have the prayers of millions around the world — and to have partaken of the healing waters of the Lourdes Grotto. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM DR. MARC SIEGEL