Pope Leo XIV's Creole legacy emphasizes the complex history of racism and the church in America

NEW ORLEANS -The French -sounding last name of the new Pope, Prevost, fascinates Jari Honora, a genealogist from New Orleans who started digging in the archives and discovered that the pope had deep roots in great simple roots.

All four great -grandparents of Pope Leo XIV maternal side were “free colored people” in Louisiana, which were based on census recordings from the 19th century. As part of the melting agent of French, Spanish, African and Indian cultures in Louisiana, the maternal ancestors of the Pope would be considered Creole.

“It was something special for me because I share this heritage and many of my friends who are Catholic here in New Orleans,” said Honora, historian in the historic New Orleans Collection, a museum in the French quarter.

Honora and others in the black and Creole Catholic communities say that the choice of Leo – a chicago born in Chicago who spent over two decades in Peru, including eight years as a bishop – is exactly what the Catholic Church needs to unite the global church and to increase the profile of black Catholics, whose history and contributions have been overlooked for a long time.

A rich cultural identity

Leo, who has not spoken openly about his roots, can also have a regular connection to Haiti. His grandfather, Joseph Norval Martinez, may have been born there, although historical records are contradictory, said Honora. Martinez 'parent-grandparents of the Pope's parent have been living in Louisiana for at least in the 1850s, he said.

Andrew Jolivette, professor of sociology and afro-indigenous studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Grub and found that the Pope's ancestors reflected the unique cultural tapestry of southern Louisiana. The Pope's Creole roots draw attention to the complex, differentiated identities that keep Creoles, he said.

“There is Cuban descent on his maternal side. So there are a number of first and it is a question of pride for Creole,” said Jolivette, whose family is Kreolisch from Louisiana. “So I also see him as a Latino pope because the influence of the Latino heir cannot be ignored in conversation about Kreolen.”

Most of the Creoles are Catholic and historically, it was their belief that gave families together when they wandered to larger cities like Chicago, said Jolivette.

The grandparents of the former cardinal Robert Prevost – identified in historical records as “Mulatto” and “Black” – were married in New Orleans in 1887 and lived in the historically Creole seventh station of the city. In the coming years, the Jim Crow regime of the racial regulation rolled back after the war reforms after the civilian reforms and “almost every aspect of their lives was described by breed that even extended to the church,” said Honora.

An American history of migration

The grandparents of the Pope emigrated to Chicago around 1910, like many other African -American families who left the racist oppression of the deep south and “gone for white,” said Honora. The mother of the Pope, Mildred Agnes Martinez, who was born in Chicago, is identified as “white” in her birth certificate from 1912, said Honora.

“You can understand that people may have deliberately tried to disguise their heir,” he said. “Life was always precarious for people with color in the south, including New Orleans.”

The old house of the grandparents of the Pope in New Orleans was later destroyed by others to build a motorway overpass, which in the 1960s “identified” the largely black neighborhood, said Honora.

A former mayor of New Orleans, Marc Morial, called the history of the Pope, “an American story about how people escape American racism and American bigotry”.

When Catholic with Creole inheritance, which grew up near the neighborhood in which the grandparents of the Pope lived, Morial said that he had contradictory feelings. While he is proud of the Pope's connection to his city, Morial said that the changing racial identity of the new Pope of the Pope's maternal family stands out, “the idea that people in America had to escape their authenticity to survive.”

African American influence on Catholicism

The Rev. Ajani Gibson, which leads the predominantly black community in the St. Peter Claver Church in New Orleans, said that he sees the Pope's roots as a confirmation of African -American influence on Catholicism in his city.

“I think that many people are a matter of course that the things that people love most of New Orleans are both black and Catholic,” said Gibhol, referring to rich cultural contributions to Carnival, New Orleans' Jazz tradition and brass band, which are known as second lines.

He hoped that the Pope's Creole inheritance – from the “Kulturgumbo pot” of the city – showed an integrative view for the Catholic Church.

“I want the continued survey of the universal nature of the church – that the church looks like everyone,” said Gibson. “We all have a place and come and bring who we are, completely and totally as gifts to church.”

Shannen Dee Williams, a history professor at the University of Dayton, hopes that Leo's “genealogical roots and historical papacy will underline that all streets in American Catholicism in the north, in South and Central America to the fundamental roots of the church in their mostly inappropriate and uncontrolled stories of Catholic colonialism, the swears, of the Weap roots and unconsum.

“There were always two transatlantic stories of American Catholicism; one that begins with Europeans, and another who begins with African and African people who are free and enslaved and live in Europe and Africa in the 16th century,” she said. “Just as the black story is American history, it also reminds us (Leo's) story from the fact that the black history is Catholic history and has always been, also in the United States.”

Hope for the future

Kim R. Harris, deputy professor of African -American religious thinking and practice at the Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, said that the Pope's genealogy had thought about the seven African -American Catholics, which were recognized by the national black Catholic congress, but have not yet been canonized.

Harris raised Pierre Toussaint, a philanthropist born in Haiti as a slave, who became an entrepreneur in New York and was explained by Pope John Paul II in 1997.

“The excitement that I have at that moment probably has to do with the hope that the choice of this Pope will help to take this canonization process with them,” said Harris.

Although it is not known how Leo identifies itself racistically, his roots bring African -American Catholics a feeling of hope, she said.

“When I think about a person who brings so much of the history of this country into his bones, I really hope that as an American and who we are as people of diaspora,” she said. “It brings a completely new perspective and expands the vision of who we are all.”

Reynold betret, President of the Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans, the only historically black Catholic university, said that he was “a little surprised” about the pope's legacy.

“It's a joyful connection,” he said. “It is a confirmation that the Catholic Church is really universal and (black) Catholics regardless of a church that was human and imperfect. It also shows us that the Church exceeds the national borders.”

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Bharath reported from Los Angeles.

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Brook is a member of the Corps for the “Associated Press/Report” initiative for America Statehouse News. The report for America is a non -profit National Service program that reports journalists in local news editorial offices on hidden topics.

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