The Vatican is weighing options for Pope Leo XIV’s planned trip to Latin America from Nov. 6 to 17, including changes to the itinerary or postponing the visit until the spring. “It will depend on the doctors. If necessary, he will adjust the way he carries out his pontificate. The question now is when he will return and in what condition,” Cardinal Pietro Parolin said. Concerns about the “long and demanding” trip appear to reflect broader questions about the Pope’s ability to sustain his current pace of work.

“The Pope is not a comic-book superhero but a man among men, a sick person among the sick,” said Bishop Domenico Mogavero. Recovery after surgery, he added, “for him, as for everyone else, means gradually overcoming difficulties and obstacles while allowing the body the time it needs to heal. From his announcement during Sunday’s Angelus, the Pope has been clear about the situation.” His recovery is only beginning.

“The Pope has resumed working from Gemelli Hospital,” the Holy See announced.

“Here we go again: for the past couple of days, the Vatican team responsible for inspections and on-site assessments has been in Latin America,” said Filippo Di Giacomo, a canon lawyer and priest.

“Twenty transfers by plane and helicopter are unthinkable three weeks from now, so the trip will have to be reworked, eliminating the most demanding stops, such as Cuzco, at an altitude of 11,155 feet,” Di Giacomo said. “The Curia, as an administrative structure, has often changed its functions and names, but the idea that the Pope himself is the Church is absurd.

“This is all truer because Leo puts the institution ahead of personal charisma. That makes the almost devotional narrative of his recovery misleading and even offensive: he has eaten, he has walked, he is in good spirits. Under Leo XIV’s model, doctors do their jobs as doctors, surgeons as surgeons, nurses as nurses, and the Pope is the patient. There is no point in expecting elaborate press conferences or comforting fairy tales.”

Di Giacomo also warned that the Pope’s illness could undermine the work of reconciliation Leo had been methodically pursuing.

“Robert Prevost inherited a deeply troubled Church, and now his recovery threatens to weaken a process of reconciliation, reigniting tensions and divisions that the conclave had managed to contain by electing an outsider capable of balancing the competing visions of national episcopates and the Curia,” he said.

This is complex, long-term work, with a horizon that extends beyond the calculations of the moment. I would be cautious about portraying a pope as politically weakened by illness and made vulnerable by the need to delegate. During Francis’ pontificate, every figure identified in turn as a possible successor was ultimately outlasted by him. We are no longer in the days of Benedict, betrayed by his own circle, or in the final phase of Pope Bergoglio’s pontificate, marked by factional warfare. An unfinished reform becomes a battleground: everyone against everyone.”

Working from Gemelli Hospital, Robert Prevost appointed four bishops in two days. Sociologist Massimo Introvigne said there was concern about how the Pope’s health problems might affect his broader vision of an inclusive Church — one that preserves Francis’ reforms while placing them within a framework designed to prevent further fractures and heal divisions.

“The question, however, is whether this was — or is — a project that depends on Leo himself, a Pope capable of fostering unity where his predecessor, certainly unintentionally, also fostered division, or whether it represents a different style of governance, one that includes the Pope but is not limited to his person and presupposes a team,” Introvigne said.

He added that Leo’s plan to create an inclusive tent where different perspectives can coexist involves moving away from a system in which everything revolves around the Pope, who bypasses the responsibilities of the Curia’s departments, as Francis often did, and toward one that restores the normal functioning of the Curia’s various offices.

“That is Leo’s project, and many people welcome it. But it also faces opposition from those who fear that an inclusive strategy could bring back into play opponents they thought had been sidelined,” Introvigne said.

The former OSCE representative for religious freedom warned that if those opposing the strategy prevail, the Church could return to a period of conflict, with factions seeking to exploit Leo’s illness to undermine his project.