NewzVATICAN CITY (AP) — Question: Who runs the Catholic Church when the pope is unconscious, incapacitated or otherwise unable to govern? The Vatican has detailed laws, rituals and norms to transfer papal power if a pope dies or resigns. But none of them apply when he is sick or even unconscious, as Pope Leo XIV will be when he undergoes surgery Tuesday to remove a nodule on his lung.
As a result, Leo remains pope and very much in charge even when he goes under general anesthesia at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, where he arrived Tuesday afternoon for what is expected to be a weeklong stay. The pope’s role is universal by design The pope is the successor of the Apostle Peter, the head of the college of bishops, the Vicar of Christ and the pastor of the universal Catholic Church on Earth, according to the church’s in-house canon law. Nothing changes in his status, role or power since Leo was elected the 267th pope on May 8, 2025.
The Vatican bureaucracy already helps him govern Leo may be in charge, but he already delegates the day-to-day running of the Vatican and church to a team of officials who operate whether he is in the Apostolic Palace or not, and whether he is conscious or not. Chief among them is the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. In a sign that Leo’s hospitalization foresaw no change to the governance of the church, Parolin wasn’t even in the Vatican on Tuesday.
He was speaking at a conference nearby. “We were all struck by the serenity with which the pope announced this procedure,” Parolin told reporters as he arrived for the conference. Yes, because I certainly didn’t expect something like this.” But Parolin said he had spoken with the pope Monday night and was reassured.
“It’s something that, thank God, we noticed right away. And normally, when these things are caught in time, they can be resolved,” he said. “But these are, as the pope said, God’s surprises.” Other Vatican functions are proceeding normally, including the announced appointments of two new bishops on Tuesday, albeit with some modifications for events where the pope had been expected to attend.
When a pope gets sick, nothing changes legally Canon law has provisions for when a diocesan bishop gets sick and can’t run his diocese, but none for a pope. Canon 412 says a diocese can be declared “impeded” if its bishop — due to “captivity, ban… He was speaking at a conference nearby.“We were all struck by the serenity with which the pope announced this procedure,” Parolin told reporters as he arrived for the conference.
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