Pope Leo XIV’s maternal grandparents were black or mixed and of Creole descent, moving from New Orleans to Chicago at the turn of the 20th century, reports said Friday.
“The family were free people of color prior to the Civil War. When they move to Chicago between 1910 and 1912, they ‘passed’ into the white world,” Jari Honora, a historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection, told CNN of the new pope’s mother’s parents.
The pope’s maternal grandfather, Joseph Martinez, was described as a black cigarmaker from “Hayti” in some historical records, while other documents listed his birthplace as the Dominican Republic or Louisiana, the New York Times said.
His maternal grandmother, Louise Baquiex, was born in New Orleans, according to documents.
“Both Joseph Norval Martinez and Louise Baquié were people of color, no doubt about it,” Honora told the Times.
The pope’s brother John Prevost told the outlet that his paternal grandparents were from France.
He said his family did not identify as black and that he and his siblings didn’t talk about their Creole ties.
“It was never an issue,” John said.
The pope’s newly revealed ancestry “is just an additional reminder of how interwoven we are as Americans,” Honora told the Times.
“I hope that it will highlight the long history of black Catholics, both free and enslaved, in this country, which includes the Holy Father’s family,” he said.
A New Orleans priest with Creole ancestry, Father Tony Ricard, said Pope Leo XIV’s genealogy wasn’t much of a surprise to him.
“When [Pope Leo] came to the balcony, I looked up, and I was like, ‘That dude looks like he could be my brother,” the priest told CNN.
“And that’s before we even knew what his heritage was.
“I guess we have to start calling him ‘the Gumbo Pope’ because he’s a little bit of everything mixed together,” Ricard quipped.