There’s a new pope of the Catholic Curch, and he’s the first pope to be born here in the U.SA.
Not only that, but Pope Leo XIV, born Robert Francis Prevost, is of a Creole lineage that traces back to New Orleans, according to Jari Honora, a local genealogist and historian.
Honora found evidence that the Pope, a Chicago native, has maternal grandparents who called New Orleans home and were likely from Haiti. In fact, according to Nola.com, Leo XIV mentioned in previous interviews that his interest in the priesthood developed as he grew up around clergymen, whom his mother often fed.
“Now we know why her cooking was so good,” Honora quipped. “Both (of her parents) were from New Orleans.”
From Nola.com:
When Honora heard the last name “Prevost,” he started digging, on the odd chance Leo XIV’s paternal line might be French Canadian or Acadian with Louisiana ties. What he found, to his surprise, was that Prevost’s mother, Mildred Martinez, was the one with familial cords to the city.
In less than an hour, Honora — who works as a historian for The Historic New Orleans Collection and was a researcher on the PBS documentary “Finding Your Roots” — was able to track the pope’s maternal grandparents to the 7th Ward, a neighborhood long recognized as a cultural stronghold for people of African, French, Spanish and Native American descent.
He also found evidence that the pope, 69, had “Creole of color roots,” according to his Facebook post. Dating back to 1722, Louisiana’s “gens de couleur libre” population was heavily Roman Catholic and known for its contributions to art and business.
Honora found the pope’s maternal grandparents, the Pope’s maternal grandparents, Joseph Martinez and Louise Baquié, by tracking down their marriage certificate, which revealed that they were married in 1887 at Our Lady of Sacred Heart on Annette Street in New Orleans.
According to CNN, Martinez and Baquié were both listed as Black in census records from 1900.
As for the pope’s politics, he’s not particularly vocal on social media, but he has made a habit out of reposting articles that are critical of President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and the White House administration’s Constitution-defying immigration policy.
In February, he shared a National Catholic Reporter article that blasted Vance over his response to a question on immigration, which he responded to by blathering on about how Christianity teaches about love and compassion for family and neighbors first and the rest of the world second. (I bet y’all didn’t know that “America first” was actually a Bible quote from MAGA Jesus.) Leo XIV even quoted the article’s headline: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”
According to CBS News, more recently, the pope shared an op-ed piece that was critical of the Trump administration’s deportation of Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.
And these are just recent posts. It turns out the new pope has been reposting anti-Trump media, mostly regarding the president’s immigration policies, for at least the past decade.
From CBS:
In 2018, he reposted Cardinal Blase Cupich’s criticism of the Trump administration’s family separation policy during Mr. Trump’s first term.
In 2017, he reposted a California Catholic Conference statement opposing the administration’s stance on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration policy, or DACA, which allows immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as minors to live and work here.
In 2015, when Mr. Trump was still a Republican primary candidate, he reposted an article by Cardinal Timothy Dolan titled, “Why Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric is so problematic.”
Previous posts also indicate that the pope is a gun control advocate. However, before folks start trying to declare the new pope as the Catholic Church’s latest progressive leader, his past posts also indicate that he’s anti-abortion and that he has regressive views on “genre ideology,” which LGBTQ media advocacy group GLAAD noted, “is not a term transgender people use to describe themselves, it is an inaccurate term deployed by opponents to undermine and dehumanize transgender and nonbinary people.”
Voting records show that Leo XIV has voted in both Democratic and Republican primaries in the past.
The post Meet The New Pope: Chicago Native Leo XIV Doesn’t Like Trump’s Immigration Policies, Pontchartrain Pontiff Has Covert Creole Roots appeared first on Bossip.
