ROME (AP) — Pope Francis has arrived at the Vatican after he was discharged from a Rome hospital 10 days after intestinal surgery to remove half of his colon.

Francis gave thanks for the success of the operation and offered prayers for others during a visit en route home to Rome’s Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica.

The pope always visits the basilica after returning home from a foreign trip to pray before a beloved icon of the Virgin Mary.

The Ford car carrying Francis stopped briefly at the side entrance to Vatican City.

Francis emerged from the passenger seat with the aid of a bodyguard to greet some security guards standing outside.

He then got back in the car and proceeded to enter the Vatican through the Perugino gate on Wednesday.

Francis had half of his colon removed for a severe narrowing of his large intestine on July 4, his first major surgery since he became pope in 2013.

It was a planned procedure, scheduled for early July when the pope’s audiences are suspended anyway, and Francis would normally take some time off.

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican says Pope Francis has “reacted well” to planned intestinal surgery Sunday evening at a Rome hospital.

In a statement late Sunday, a Holy See spokesman says the 84-year-old Francis had general anesthesia during the surgery necessitated by a narrowing of the sigmoid portion of the large intestine.

Spokesman Matteo Bruni didn’t say how long the surgery lasted.

The pope's surgery took place after the Vatican released brief announcement Sunday afternoon. Just three hours earlier, Francis had cheerfully greeted the public in St. Peter’s Square and told them he will go to Hungary and Slovakia in September.

A week earlier, Francis, 84, had used the same appearance to ask the public for special prayers for himself, which might have hinted at the planned surgery at Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic.

Francis is in generally good health, but did have part of one lung removed as a young man.