By Stacy M. BrownBlackPressUSA Senior Nationwide Correspondent
Black America is taking pleasure in a fact shaking up the Vatican and resonating by the streets of New Orleans: Pope Leo XIV—previously Cardinal Robert Prevost of Chicago—has Black and Creole roots.
Credit score: Vatican Media
The pope’s factual anthropological roots will not be simply symbolic. In line with genealogist Jari Honora, his maternal lineage traces on to the Black group of New Orleans’ seventh Ward, with household ties to Haiti, and census information figuring out his ancestors as “Black” or “Mulatto.”
“By the Europeans’ personal ‘1/eighth’ guidelines, now we have a Black Pope,” famous writer Elie Mystal declared. “Anyway, Pope’s grandfather is Haitian. We type of obtained a Black Pope. ‘Finish Woke’ isn’t gonna be completely happy about this.”
Additional, New Orleans historian Jari Christopher Honora, talking to the Nationwide Catholic Reporter and Black Catholic Messenger, detailed how the pope’s grandparents married in 1887 at Our Woman of the Sacred Coronary heart Church on Annette Avenue in New Orleans earlier than migrating north. His mom, Mildred Martínez, was the primary little one within the household born in Chicago. “The Holy Father’s ancestors are recognized as both Black or Mulatto,” Honora mentioned.
The Chicago Tribune and New York Occasions additionally reported on Pope Leo’s mixed-race background and Creole lineage, noting that his election marks a defining second within the Church’s evolving identification.
“As a Black man, a proud son of New Orleans, and the U.S. Congressman representing the very seventh Ward neighborhood the place our new Pope’s household hails from, I’m bursting with pleasure in the present day,” mentioned Rep. Troy Carter. “That is historical past! The primary American Pope, with Creole and Haitian roots, rising from the streets of New Orleans to the Vatican. As a Xavier College alum, I understand how deeply religion and resilience run in our group. We rejoice this second—with pleasure, with prayers, and with pleasure.”
Former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial known as Leo XIV’s background “common,” saying, “Right here’s an American whose ministry was in Peru, who has roots within the American South and in addition ancestry within the American Black group.”
Leo XIV is a member of the Augustinian Order, named after the African theologian St. Augustine of Hippo. His election got here from a conclave by which two different main contenders—Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana and Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu of the Democratic Republic of Congo—had been additionally males of African descent.
However Leo XIV stood aside—not simply as the primary pope from the U.S. however as one identified for his outspokenness on racial justice, immigrant rights, gun reform and the abolition of the demise penalty.
TIME journal reported that his choice represented a Vatican rebuke of efforts by rich People and political operatives aligned with Donald Trump to affect the papal final result. Recognized in Rome as “The Latin Yankee,” Leo XIV used his verified X account (@drprevost) to amplify criticism of Trump-era immigration insurance policies, typically reposting commentary from revered Catholic figures. The New York Submit reported that his final submit earlier than his election was a retweet of Catholic journalist Rocco Palmo slamming Trump’s alliance with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele over migrant deportations. Again in 2017, the Roman Catholic chief additionally reposted a message quoting Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich, calling Trump’s refugee bans “a darkish hour of US historical past.”
Although Trump provided lukewarm congratulations from the White Home driveway, his far-right allies
had been fast to lash out. Laura Loomer tweeted, “WOKE MARXIST POPE,” calling Pope Leo “simply one other Marxist puppet within the Vatican.”
However exterior the MAGA echo chamber, in Black communities throughout the globe, the emotion is pleasure. “The pope is Black,” journalist Clarence Hill Jr. mentioned bluntly.
And meaning one thing within the Black neighborhoods of Chicago and the Creole corridors of New Orleans. Many mentioned it means illustration, resilience and the reshaping of historical past on the highest stage of the Catholic Church.
“We rejoice this second—not as a result of it erases the struggles of our previous, however as a result of it affirms that our religion, our heritage, and our presence matter,” Rep. Carter mentioned. “That is historical past, and it belongs to all of us.”
The Rev. Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. affirmed, “On behalf of the Black Press of America because the genuine voice of fifty million African People and tens of millions extra all through the African diaspora, we be part of to rejoice Pope Leo XVI, a world chief of African descent who speaks fact to energy with braveness and beauty.”
