Pope Leo, Fresh From Cancer Surgery, Calls For Universal Health Care "In Every Society"
Pope Leo XIV used his first major address in Uruguay to call for universal health care "in every society," less than four weeks after surgeons removed part of his lung for cancer. The speech opened a 12-day trip through Uruguay, Argentina and Peru that the Vatican cleared only after his doctors signed off.
Speaking Friday from a platform in Montevideo's Independence Square to Uruguay's civil and religious authorities, business leaders, civil society and the diplomatic corps, Leo started from his own hospital stay, America magazine reported from the scene. "Recently, I experienced firsthand the limitations imposed by illness, and I received care for which I am deeply grateful," he said, adding that "that experience makes me think of the many men and women who lack the means to obtain a timely diagnosis or receive the treatments they need."
Highlights of Pope Leo XIV's arrival and welcome in Montevideo, Uruguay pic.twitter.com/G1zyVmxjGy
— Vatican News (@VaticanNews) November 6, 2026
"Ensuring that health care is accessible to everyone, regardless of their resources, is a duty that confronts every society," Leo said. Pope Francis also pushed for universal health care, and it is a long-standing position of the Holy See, so the line is less a new doctrine than a pope putting his own diagnosis behind an old one.
The diagnosis is recent. As we reported, the Vatican said Leo underwent surgery on Oct. 13 at Rome's Gemelli hospital to remove the lower lobe of his right lung, with the cancer confirmed as lung adenocarcinoma. Reuters later reported that doctors found the cancer localized and in need of no further treatment.
The Vatican confirmed on Oct. 26 that the trip would go ahead unchanged. The pope's physician, Dr. Luigi Carbone, said "there's no medical reason preventing Leo's trip to South America," according to the Associated Press.
The schedule is punishing for a 71-year-old weeks out of a lung operation. Reuters counted about 31,000 km across 10 cities, with 36 speeches, 12 flights and two helicopter trips, including Cusco, Peru, at 3,399 meters (11,152 feet). Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said, "The pope is in good health," and Reuters quoted Dr. Antonio Passaro as expecting doctors may advise rest breaks and supplemental oxygen at the high-altitude stops.
The setting made the health care line pointed, as 'America' noted that Uruguay is a secular republic whose left-wing president, Yamandú Orsi, signed a euthanasia law last April, making it the first country in Latin America to do so, and that abortion has been legal there since 2012. Leo spoke of "loneliness, anxiety and the loss of hope" that can leave a person without "a reason to continue living," and said "adequate health care, family ties and the closeness of the community are inseparable." America put Uruguay's 2025 suicide rate at 19.16 per 100,000 people.
He tied the point to the economy as well. "The creation of wealth, investment and economic initiative - both public and private - are necessary for a country's development, yet their benefits must also translate into goods and opportunities that effectively reach everyone," Leo said, according to America.
On church and state, he told a country that calls Christmas "The Family Day" and Holy Week "The Week of Tourism" that "this neutrality does not require that the religious dimension be confined to the private sphere."
He also praised Uruguay's near-total reliance on renewable power and four decades of uninterrupted democracy since the 1973-1985 dictatorship ended.