• Italy Pope Francis, operated in a hospital in Rome

"The Holy Father

reacted well to the intervention

carried out under general anesthesia."

The news that everyone had been waiting for for hours came with the

Gemelli Hospital

medical bulletin

at

11:40 p.m. on Sunday.

First sigh of relief:

Pope Francis

underwent surgery for diverticular stenosis of the colon.

"His Holiness is in good general condition, alert and breathing spontaneously. Surgery for diverticular stenosis performed on the night of July 4, included a left hemicolectomy (removal of half the colon) and

lasted approximately 3 hours

.

hospitalization of about 7 days

,

except complications,

"added Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, in the last medical bulletin, this morning.

Until yesterday, however, no one expected that Pope Bergoglio would have to undergo surgery. In the deserted hall of the Gemelli Polyclinic, with the glass doors of the bar padlocked and the waiting rooms empty, the Holy Father suddenly appeared at three in the afternoon after emerging from a dark car with the SCV plate that he stopped underneath. of a white canopy. Only the driver and a close collaborator accompanied him. Nothing more.

Light luggage and a smile on your face.

One Sunday in early July the

Trionfale district

hospital

,

which with

Pope Wojtyla,

became the hospital of the popes, the "third Vatican", suddenly lit up. The astonishment seized the orderlies, doctors and nurses, as well as the few relatives who visited the patients. At least of those who noticed it, because

Pope Francis passed like a lightning bolt

: sick among the sick, he took the elevator and went up to the tenth floor, in the same place frequented for years, up to seven times, by

John Paul II

after the attempt. murder he suffered in 1981.

For the

Argentine pontiff,

on the other hand, it was the first occasion: "a planned operation", according to the Vatican press office, routine in most cases, although delicate in an 84-year-old patient, of which very few people were aware, even in Gemelli himself.

So much so that only at the last moment some members of the health personnel and security guards were able to return from vacation in the greatest secrecy.

Pope Francis who, at 12 o'clock that morning had recited the Angelus as always,

announcing, "God willing", the next missions in Slovakia and Hungary in September,

entered the operating room at 7 in the afternoon

.

The intervention lasted approximately three hours, between the strictest confidentiality and the expectation of those waiting for news.

At the head, the team of Professor Sergio Alfieri, director of the Digestive Surgery operating unit.

In a few minutes the

news of the Pope's hospitalization went around the world

.

In the plaza outside the polyclinic, dozens of television crews, including foreigners, were transferred to a lawned area controlled by the police, overlooking the

eight

milk-

white windows

with low shutters of Francisco's rooms, the same from where Pope Wojtyla recited the Angelus, as remembered today by the dozens of photographs that are exhibited in one of the corridors of the Gemelli.

Inside the hospital, plainclothes agents from the Vatican Inspection and Gendarmerie searched the corridors for intruders, although the 10th floor is inaccessible.

In the chapel, someone asked for a prayer for the Pope while others, in the square, recalled that two Sundays ago Bergoglio had asked the faithful to pray for him "with particular intensity."

Also addressed to the Pope yesterday were several

messages from the highest officials of the country and abroad

, such as the affectionate from Paris of the Head of State, Sergio Mattarella: "From me and from all Italians, my best wishes for a speedy recovery" .

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

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