Pope Leo XIV Has Haitian, Black Roots As Family Ties Traced Back To New Orleans

The new pope has Haitian blood, and his great-grandparents were listed through census records as 'free people of color' living in Louisiana.

Research has led to reports that the new pontiff, Pope Leo XIV, has Black family roots that trace back to New Orleans.

According to The Associated Press, the first pope born in America is a person of color, based on records discovered by a New Orleans genealogist. Jari Honora, who looked up Pope Leo’s given name because he has a French-sounding last name, Prevost. She found out that his lineage comes from a family that had roots in the Louisiana city.

“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, who works as a historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection, a museum in the French Quarter.

Through her research, she found that his great-grandparents, Jacques Martínez and Marie Rosa Ramos, were listed through census records as “free people of color” living in Louisiana. His other set of great-grandparents, Fernandid Baquié, and Eugenie Grandbois, were found to be “Mulatto.” Although his mother, Mildred Martinez Prevost, is listed as white on her birth certificate, her father, Joseph Martinez, was listed as Haitian, while her mother, Louise Baquié, was described as Black and “Mulatto.”

ABC News reports that photos of their grandparents were shown to Pope Leo XIV’s brother, John Prevost, and he confirmed it was them to the media outlet. Prevost did admit that they knew that their grandparents were Haitian and about their ties to New Orleans, but the family never discussed racial matters with them.

“In that intervening period, they not only migrated from New Orleans to Chicago in the period between 1910 and 1912, but they also changed their racial identifiers, which is very common,” Honora said. “Many families did this as a question of their livelihoods as an economic decision, they passed for white.”

New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell said, “The City of New Orleans is a melting pot of different religions and beliefs. We are thrilled to welcome Pope Leo XIV, who embodies morality, unity, and inclusivity.”