Japanese Brain Cancer Specialist Says He Never Examined Pope
By Nicole Winfield And Daniela Petroff
A Japanese brain cancer specialist identified in an Italian news report as having diagnosed a brain tumor in Pope Francis has denied ever examining the pontiff and says the reports are “completely false.” Dr Takanori Fukushima, director of the Carolina Neuroscience Institute in Raleigh, North Carolina, issued a statement Wednesday through Duke University. He said: “I have never medically examined the pope. These stories are completely false.” Citing unnamed sources, the Italian news outlet National Daily said Fukushima had examined the pope and determined that the small dark spot on Francis’ brain was a tumor that could be treated without surgery. The Vatican denied the reports Wednesday. The National Daily said the 78-year-old pope had traveled by helicopter to the San Rossore di Barbaricina clinic near Pisa in recent months to see Fukushima. The newspaper said the doctor determined that the small dark spot on Francis’ brain could be treated without surgery. In subsequent versions, the paper said Fukushima had instead come to the Vatican to see the pope in a Vatican helicopter. The ANSA news agency, citing unnamed sources in Pisa, said the trip was in January and that Fukushima had traveled by helicopter to the Vatican to diagnose the pope. Vatican spokesman, the Rev Federico Lombardi, categorically denied the reports to journalists Wednesday, issuing three separate and increasingly exasperated denials as the day wore on and after consulting with the pope himself, who appeared in fine form during his weekly general audience. Lombardi said no Japanese doctor had visited the pope, the pope had not travelled to Pisa, no tests of the type described in the paper had been performed and that no helicopters had landed in the Vatican from the outside. “I can confirm that the pope is in good health,” Lombardi said. “If you were in the piazza this morning you would have seen that as well. And if you go on the trips with him, you know he has a small problem with his legs, but his head is absolutely perfect.” The newspaper’s editor, Andrea Cangini, said he stood by the story. Fukushima has been at the Vatican and met with the pope on other occasions. On his Japanese-language blog, Fukushima has an entry from September 2014, complete with photos of him meeting the pope in St Peter’s Square. He wrote that his father had served as a priest at the Meiji Shrine and was a senior priest at the Association of Shinto Shrines and that he was “overwhelmed” to meet with Francis. In a blog post from January-February of this year, Fukushima wrote that he went back to the Vatican on Jan 28, via helicopter, and met with several cardinals including Cardinal Angelo Comastri, the archpriest of St Peter’s Basilica. Both visits were arranged on the sidelines of surgical duties he was performing in Rome and elsewhere, he wrote. Cangini said the paper had deliberated a long time before publishing the news, which it said it had confirmed months ago. The publication, however, comes at a delicate time for Francis, in the final days of his hotly contested synod on the family, which has shown a split among conservative and liberal bishops over how to convey the church’s teachings on marriage, sex, homosexuality and other issues. Several conservative bishops and cardinals have complained that the synod, which Francis called, is creating confusion and “anxiety” about the church’s teachings. The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, suggested that the report was aimed at manipulating the synod process. “The moment chosen (to release it) reveals the manipulative aim,” of trying to make something out of nothing, L’Osservatore wrote. A close confidante of Francis, the Rev Antonio Spadaro, tweeted that the attempt may have been more personal. “Now they don’t know what else to say ... After all the lies they’re now inventing illnesses! A good sign…”
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