Pope Leo XIVs Creole heritage highlights complex history of racism and the church in America

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The new pope’s French-sounding last name, Prevost, intrigued Jari Honora, a New Orleans genealogist, who began digging in the archives and discovered the pope had deep roots in the Big Easy.

All four of Pope Leo XIV’s maternal great-grandparents were “free people of color” in Louisiana based on 19th-century census records, Honora found. As part of the melting pot of French, Spanish, African and Native American cultures in Louisiana, the pope’s maternal ancestors would be considered Creole.

“It was special for me because I share that heritage and so do many of my friends who are Catholic here in New Orleans,” said Honora, a historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection, a museum in the French Quarter.

Honora and others in the Black and Creole Catholic communities say the election of Leo — a Chicago native who spent over two decades in Peru including eight years as a bishop — is just what the Catholic Church needs to unify the global church and elevate the profile of Black Catholics whose history and contributions have long been overlooked.

A rich cultural identity

Leo, who has not spoken openly about his roots, may also have an ancestral connection to Haiti. His grandfather, Joseph Norval Martinez, may have been born there, though historical records are conflicting, Honora said. However, Martinez’s parents — the pope’s great-grandparents — were living in Louisiana since at least the 1850s, he said.

Andrew Jolivette, a professor of sociology and Afro-Indigenous Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, did his own digging and found the pope’s ancestry reflected the unique cultural tapestry of southern Louisiana. The pope’s Creole roots draw attention to the complex, nuanced identities Creoles hold, he said.

“There is Cuban ancestry on his maternal side. So, there are a number of firsts here and it’s a matter of pride for Creoles,” said Jolivette, whose family is Creole from Louisiana. “So, I also view him as a Latino pope because the influence of Latino heritage cannot be ignored in the conversation about Creoles.”

Jari Honora, family historian for the Historic New Orleans Collection, shows genealogy material of the grandparents of Pope Leo XIV in New Orleans, Friday, May 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) Jari Honora, family historian for the Historic New Orleans Collection, shows genealogy material of the grandparents of Pope Leo XIV in New Orleans, Friday, May 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) Add AP News on Google Add AP News as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Share Share Facebook

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Most Creoles are Catholic and historically it was their faith that kept families together as they migrated to larger cities like Chicago, Jolivette said.

The former Cardinal Robert Prevost’s maternal grandparents — identified as “mulatto” and “Black” in historical records — were married in New Orleans in 1887 and lived in the city’s historically Creole Seventh Ward. In the coming years, the Jim Crow regime of racial segregation rolled back post-Civil War reforms and “just about every aspect of their lives was circumscribed by race, extending even to the church,” Honora said.

An American story of migration

The pope’s grandparents migrated to Chicago around 1910, like many other African American families leaving the racial oppression of the Deep South, and “passed for white,” Honora said. The pope’s mother, Mildred Agnes Martinez, who was born in Chicago, is identified as “white” on her 1912 birth certificate, Honora said.

“You can understand, people may have intentionally sought to obfuscate their heritage,” he said. “Always life has been precarious for people of color in the South, New Orleans included.