Pope Leo Undergoes ‘Successful’ Surgery to Remove Lung Nodule, Vatican Says

BREAKING: Pope Leo undergoes 'successful' surgery to remove a lung nodule, the Vatican says, with the pontiff expected to spend about a week recovering in hospital.

Pope Leo has had surgery to remove a nodule from his lung.

The Vatican is calling the operation successful, and that word, successful, is doing a lot of work tonight. The pontiff went under the knife to take out the lung nodule, and the plan now is about a week of recovery in hospital before he's back at the Vatican. You can see him here in recent weeks, carrying a full schedule right up to this point.

Any surgery on a pope gets the world's attention, and anything involving the lungs gets it twice over. The Holy See is keeping the details tight, no word yet on what the nodule was or what the pathology shows, and that's the answer a billion Catholics will be waiting on.

For now, the official line is simple. The operation went well, and the Pope is recovering. A week in a hospital bed, and the whole Church watching the window.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.