Originally published at The Crux
Read more...
CHICAGO — Gail Spreen goes most days to Mass just a few blocks from her home in Chicago, but the service at Holy Name Cathedral on Wednesday — dedicated to Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV — felt different.
“Knowing that everybody is behind him, it was very special to be there today,” Spreen said. “The church was full and everybody was praying. You could just see all those prayers going up and being received.”
Catholics in Chicago and around the world met the news of Leo’s lung cancer diagnosis with shock, concern and support for the 71-year-old, whose candor around his health broke with the Vatican’s tendency to be tight-lipped around papal health. Leo himself announced that he had a nodule and was undergoing surgery, which confirmed that he has lung adenocarcinoma, the most common type of lung cancer. Surgeons on Tuesday removed the lower lobe of his right lung.
Spreen, whose husband died from cancer, said the pope going public with his diagnosis can “wake up the whole world” to the importance of early detection.
“If the pope can have cancer, anybody can,” she said.
The first American-born pope, Leo undertook his ministry in Peru, but he was
