ROME — Pope Francis is back at the Vatican after being discharged from a hospital in Rome on Friday following an operation on his abdomen.

Seated in a wheelchair, he waved to onlookers as he was leaving the Gemelli Hospital, where he underwent surgery to prevent an intestinal obstruction.

He spoke briefly with reporters outside the entrance to the hospital. “I’m still alive,” he said, smiling and relieved, before heading back to the Vatican.

He later went to pray in the papal basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. He prayed there after two previous hospital stays, in 2021 following intestinal surgery and more recently in April after pneumonia.

He also prays there before and after making journeys.

The pope’s next trip abroad is scheduled for August, to mark World Youth Day in Lisbon, followed by Mongolia later that month.

He is now “even better able than before” to travel to these places as problems he used to have are gone, said his surgeon Sergio Alfieri.

The doctor explained that the procedure - a laparotomy, to treat a hernia in the abdomen - would reduce the pain he was suffering.

“He will now become a stronger pope,” Alfieri said.

The pontiff’s doctors said the operation went smoothly and he tolerated the general anaesthetic well.

Before his operation last Thursday, many Catholics were concerned about the latest, urgent operation partly due to fears as to how well the pope would tolerate the anaesthetic.

He will now resume the audiences that had previously been cancelled.

On Sunday, Francis is to say the Angelus prayer again before the faithful in St Peter’s Square.

Last Sunday, for the first time in his pontificate, he did not pray the prayer to the Virgin Mary in public, having been told by medics to take care and not stand for too long, following his operation. Given that guidance, his general audience next Wednesday has been canceled.