Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, is descended from Creole people of color from New Orleans. Jari Honora, a historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection, a museum in the French Quarter, began ...

The word “Creole” has multiple meanings in a Louisiana context. It can refer to people of European descent who were born in the Americas. But it also commonly refers to mixed-race people of color.

The CHC notes Creole people share a history of “resilience in the face of enslavement, racial discrimination and pressures to assimilate culturally.” What do we know about the pope’s ancestry?

Louisiana is a rich state of mixed-race people. Wendy A. Gaudin, a California native and descendant of Louisiana Creoles, ...

Pope Leo XIV, the first American pontiff, has Creole lineage from New Orleans, according to records shared after his election.

Pope Leo XIV, the first U.S. pope, descends from Creole and free people of color in Louisiana, highlighting complex issues to race and class in American history.

First as the first U.S.-born pope — and second as the first pontiff with recent ancestors who were Creole people of color in New Orleans, something the new pope has never acknowledged publicly.

Robert Francis Prevost, the Chicago-born cardinal selected Thursday as the new pope, is descended from Creole people of color from New Orleans. The pope’s maternal grandparents, both of whom are ...

Robert Francis Prevost, 69, who took the name Pope Leo XIV, descended from Creole people of color from New Orleans. The detective work of Jari Honora, the New Orleans genealogist and historian, ...

Genealogists would later unearth that his maternal grandparents were Creole people from Louisiana — an often mixed-race cultural identity linked to French, Spanish, African and Indigenous heritages.

Pope Leo XIV's background tells the story of complicated racial identities in the U.S., multiculturalism and Black Catholics in Chicago.

Robert Francis Prevost, the Chicago-born cardinal selected Thursday as the new pope, is descended from Creole people of color from New Orleans. The pope's maternal grandparents, both of whom are ...