Catholics Entrust Pope Leo XIV to the Cancer Saint
After surgery at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital confirmed non-small cell lung cancer, devotion to St. Peregrine has spread from Forlì to the pope’s native Chicago.
As Pope Leo XIV recovers at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital from surgery on Tuesday, October 13, Catholics around the world are turning to St. Peregrine Laziosi, the fourteenth-century Servite priest long invoked as the patron of those suffering from cancer.
The Holy See Press Office confirmed Tuesday evening that the nodule removed during the operation was cancerous. The diagnosis is non-small cell lung cancer. The news has drawn the faithful to saints traditionally associated with this kind of illness.
Conversion, Penance, and a Miraculous Cure
St. Peregrine was born in 1260 in Forlì, Italy, the only son of a wealthy family. As a young man he sided with the anti-papal faction in his city. During a preaching visit by St. Philip Benizi in the 1280s, Peregrine struck the Servite in the face. Philip offered the other cheek and prayed for him.
Moved by that witness, Peregrine begged forgiveness. He later received a vision of the Virgin Mary directing him to join the Servites and took the habit in 1292. For thirty years he did not sit down. In 1322 he founded a Servite house in Forlì and became a noted preacher and confessor.
Later in life he developed a gangrenous, cancerous wound on his foot. Surgeons planned an amputation. After praying before a crucifix, Peregrine dreamed that Christ touched his foot and awoke healed; doctors found no trace of the disease. He died in 1345 at about the age of eighty. Beatified in 1609, he was canonized by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726. His feast is celebrated on May 1, and his body rests in the Basilica of St. Peregrine Laziosi in Forlì.
From Forlì to the Pope's Native Chicago
Devotion to St. Peregrine has spread to the National Shrine of St. Peregrine at Our Lady of Sorrows Basilica in Chicago, the city of Pope Leo XIV’s birth. The faithful there and elsewhere are offering prayers and novenas for the Holy Father’s recovery.
Some Catholics are also invoking St. Bernardine of Siena, regarded as a patron of lung diseases. Born in Siena in 1380, he served the sick in hospitals during the plague of 1399 and 1400 before entering Franciscan life. He died in 1444. Given the nature of the pontiff’s surgery and diagnosis, his intercession holds particular meaning for those praying for Pope Leo XIV.