“Pope Francis is alert and conscious and [sends] thanks for the many messages of closeness and prayers that have reached him immediately,” said Dr. Sergio Alfieri.

"The surgery on the pope has finished,” the Vatican press office said in a statement on the evening of June 7. “It was done without complications, and lasted three hours.”

Because his check-up was on Tuesday, a day on which he normally does not have any audiences in the Vatican, it seems reasonable to say the visit was scheduled in advance.

Cardinal Matteo Zuppi has begun a two-day peace mission in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, today, “as the envoy of the Holy Father Francis,” the Vatican announced on June 5.

According to many in the Vatican, Archbishop Gänswein’s tell-all book published shortly after Benedict’s death revealed a lack of trustworthiness, loyalty and reserve on the part of a man who was meant to be serving two popes.

In his homily for Pentecost Mass in St. Peter's Basilica May 28, the pope said that the Holy Spirit is "the heart of synodality and the driving force of evangelization."