July 14, 2025
Pope Leo obtained an official copy of his household tree, which incorporates his ties to “free folks of colour” in New Orleans.
Pope Leo XIV obtained a duplicate of his household tree from Henry Louis Gates Jr., marking his first public acknowledgment of his lineage, which incorporates Black ancestry.
On July 10, Discovering Your Roots host Henry Louis Gates Jr. shared a photograph on Fb from a non-public assembly on the Vatican, the place he and his spouse, historian Dr. Marial Iglesias Utset, offered Pope Leo with an official copy of his household tree.
“She and I had labored with an excellent crew of researchers to publish it in The New York Occasions Sunday Journal and have been deeply grateful for the possibility to stroll His Holiness via the branches of his household tree, sharing tales of his ancestors again to his twelfth great-grandparents who have been born some 500 years in the past,” Gates wrote. “This was one of the significant and deeply shifting moments of our lives.”
The assembly comes precisely two months after New Orleans genealogist Jari Honora revealed that the brand new Pope’s ancestry traces again to Black roots in New Orleans. Inquisitive about Pope Leo’s French-sounding final identify, Prevost, Honora started researching and found that each one 4 of his maternal great-grandparents have been “free folks of colour” with Haitian, Creole, and Mulatto roots.
“It was particular for me as a result of I share that heritage and so do a lot of my pals who’re Catholic right here in New Orleans,” Honora, a historian on the Historic New Orleans Assortment, advised The Related Press.
Andrew Jolivette, a professor of sociology and Afro-Indigenous Research on the College of California, Santa Barbara, did his personal analysis and found that the Pope’s Creole ancestry displays the wealthy cultural tapestry of southern Louisiana.
“There may be Cuban ancestry on his maternal aspect. So, there are a selection of firsts right here, and it’s a matter of delight for Creoles,” mentioned Jolivette, whose household is Creole from Louisiana. “So, I additionally view him as a Latino pope as a result of the affect of Latino heritage can’t be ignored within the dialog about Creoles.”
Honora, Jolivette, and members of the Black and Creole Catholic communities are actually crediting Pope Leo for uniting the worldwide Catholic Church and bringing long-overdue recognition to the historical past and contributions of Black Catholics. Different notable names Pope Leo shares ancestry with embrace Madonna, Angelina Jolie, Justin Bieber, and Hillary Clinton.
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