Top Vatican official says pope's cancer diagnosis a 'game-changer' for the papacy

ROME -- Even though Pope Leo XIV is recovering well from lung cancer surgery and is going ahead with a big trip to Latin America next week, the diagnosis is “a bit of a game-changer” for the Vatican and Leo’s still-young papacy, a top Vatican official said Tuesday.Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Holy See’s foreign minister, said there had been a temptation to think that Leo was a “Superman, a Superpope” after he was elected in 2025 and “hit the ground running” following the drawn-out illness and death of Pope Francis.“The fact that he has fallen ill with, in many ways, one of the most common illnesses of our age means that he is a poor mortal like the rest of us. And I think that that is going to change how we see him and possibly how he sees himself as well,” Gallagher told reporters at the Italian foreign press association.“Even if the operation has gone well, and everybody (says) there are grounds for considerable optimism, I think it is a bit of a game-changer at the same time,” Gallagher said.Leo, 71, had the lower lobe of his right lung removed Oct. 13 after doctors found a tumor, later diagnosed as adenocarcinoma, the most common form of lung cancer. Subsequent tests ...