"Everything has gone well," said a statement from Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman.

Lombardi said the surgery had taken place at the university hospital in Padua, in the archbishop's native Veneto region of northeastern Italy. While the spokesman 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 Oct. 15, but at a welcoming ceremony at the Vatican that day, Pope Francis surprised most people in the room 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."

In his Oct. 25 statement, Lombardi said that 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."