Pope Francis has been hospitalized at the Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome, where today he will be operated on for an intestinal obstruction. The director of the press office of the Holy See, Matteo Bruni, said the operation was necessary due to an incisional hernia – a hernia that forms over a scar resulting from a previous abdominal operation – which had caused the pope symptoms of intestinal obstruction.
Pope Francis is 86 years old and in the past he had already had various health problems: in the summer of 2021 he was hospitalized for a colon operation, and for fifty years he has been living without a large part of his right lung, lost as a result of an infection contracted when young. He has also been suffering from pain in his right knee for some time which leads him to rely on a wheelchair for most of his movements.