Archbishop Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, has been released from hospital following surgery.
Fr Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said: “Everything has gone well.”
Fr Lombardi said the surgery had taken place at the university
hospital in Padua, in the archbishop’s native Veneto region of
northeastern Italy.
While he did not specify the nature of the surgery,
he noted that it had been performed in the “hepatobiliary ward”.
Hepatobiliary medicine treats illnesses involving the liver, the
gallbladder and the bile ducts.
The archbishop was to have assumed his new duties earlier last month
but at a welcoming ceremony at the Vatican Pope Francis surprised most
people by announcing that the Secretary of State would be unable to
attend because of a “small surgical intervention” that would keep him
from work for a “few weeks”.
On Friday Fr Lombardi said that Archbishop Parolin would remain in
the Veneto for an “appropriate period of rest and convalescence, so as
to be fully restored to health when he assumes his grave new
responsibilities”.