"At the end of the General Audience, the Holy Father went to the Agostino Gemelli University Hospital where in the early afternoon he will undergo a laparotomy and abdominal wall plastic surgery with prosthesis under general anaesthesia.

The operation, arranged over the past few days by the medical team assisting the Holy Father, became necessary due to an embedded incisional hernia that is causing recurrent, painful and worsening sub-occlusive syndromes.