Pope Leo XIV to Undergo Lung Surgery Following Nodule Detection
A Pope in Surgery, Not in State
When a pontiff consents to an operation to preserve his life and health, he acts as a man under natural law, not as a prince demanding political obedience — and we do well to keep that distinction clear.
We are told that Pope Leo XIV, seventy-one years of age and the present Bishop of Rome, has a nodule in his lung, found in the course of a medical examination, and that he has agreed with his physicians to undergo surgery in the coming days, with an expected recovery of about a week. This is reported as a first major concern touching his health, and therefore is made the object of much public notice. Yet, as I read these accounts, I cannot but observe that nothing in them concerns power, laws, or penalties. They concern a body in need of care, and a man exercising choice about his own preservation.
In the Second Treatise of Government, when I defined political power, I described it narrowly: a right of making laws, with penalties of death and other less penalties, for regulating and preserving property — that is, men’s lives, liberties, and estates — only for the public good. Whatever goes beyond that, I there argued, must either justify itself or stand condemned as usurpation. Judged by that measure, the Pope’s decision to submit to the surgeon’s knife is no act of dominion over others, but an instance of that original property each man has in his own person. He is not commanding but consenting.
First, then, if we consider men as they are in the state of nature — free, equal, and independent, having no superiority one over another by birth or office — we must say that every man has a right, and indeed a duty, to preserve himself, so far as he can, when it does not stand against the preservation of others. A medical operation aimed at removing a dangerous growth falls directly under this head. The law of nature, which is reason, teaches that no one ought to harm another in his life or health; much more does it permit a man, with the help of skilled artisans, to prevent the decay of his own.
Secondly, though this man is also head of a great religious society, his flesh and his breath do not thereby become a public possession. In my Letter Concerning Toleration I wrote that the commonwealth exists for civil interests — life, liberty, health, and possessions. Here we see that principle from the other side: the man who bears spiritual office yet remains a subject of the same civil concern for health as any other. The magistrate, if any be involved, has only to secure that he receive good care and be hindered by none; he has no right to pry further, still less to command or forbid the operation.
Some will say that because his travels and public addresses are of consequence to many, his body becomes in part a matter of state. I deny it. Prudence may require that journeys to distant countries, such as those planned to Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru, be altered to suit his strength; but prudence is not sovereignty. To argue that a man’s organs are common because his office is great, is to open a door by which any ruler might claim that the lives of his subjects are instruments of his designs. That is how a long train of abuses begins: by treating men not as workmanship of one Maker, sent into the world about His business, but as tools in the hand of another man.
As for our knowledge in this case, we have only what is reported: that the mass is small, early found, and believed by his physicians to be well contained, though further tests must show its true nature. Here my Essay Concerning Human Understanding instructs me to proportion assent to the evidence. I neither despair nor presume. I know only that a man, whose mission he himself has described as preaching peace, places his body under the care of those trained to heal. The rest is conjecture and superstition, not fit ground for laws or for obedience. We should let him be a patient now, and a prince of souls again when he has regained his strength.
From the works cited
- Second Treatise of Government — Political power defined narrowly as the right to make laws, with penalties, only for the public good — anything beyond that definition must justify itself or stand condemned.
- An Essay Concerning Human Understanding — Knowledge comes from experience, not innate authority; assent must be proportioned to evidence, and verbal confusions must be cleared.
- A Letter Concerning Toleration — The commonwealth exists only for civil interests — life, liberty, health, and possessions; the care of souls is not, and cannot be, the magistrate's business.