Did the Pope Pass As White?

Pope Leo XIV appears to have grown up in an all-white Chicago suburb despite being, in part, a Creole of Color.

Boomers, like Pope Leo XIV (b. 1955) are notorious today for being born in a good time and place, but their actual upbringing was rather crowded. There were at least 46 students (not counting absentees) in the Pope’s Class 2B in 1962.

Cardinal Robert “Bob” Prevost, who was born in Chicago and raised in the south-side suburb of Dolton just outside the city line, has been elected Pope Leo XIV.

His upbringing was strikingly similar to my wife’s, who was born in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood just east of suburban Oak Park. Like him, both of her parents worked in school systems. His parents were amateur musicians, while my wife’s father was a professional classical tuba player and musicians’ union leader.

One interesting difference is that the new Pope appears to have a smidgen of sub-Saharan ancestry through his New Orlean Creole of Color ancestors.

From the New York Times news section:

New Pope Has Creole Roots in New Orleans

His ancestry, traced to a historic enclave of Afro-Caribbean culture, links Leo XIV to the rich and sometimes overlooked Black Catholic experience in America.

By Richard Fausset and Robert Chiarito

Richard Fausset grew up in New Orleans and reports on the American South. Robert Chiarito reported from New Lenox, Ill.

May 8, 2025

Robert Francis Prevost, the Chicago-born cardinal selected on Thursday as the new pope, is descended from Creole people of color from New Orleans.

Creoles of Color are mixed race people in Louisiana whose view of race derives from their French and Spanish ancestors who didn’t believe in a one-drop color line like Anglos do. They tend to believe in a Color Continuum. They generally view themselves as superior to blacks.

When they venture outside of Louisiana, they tend to have a hard time explaining how they self-identify to other Americans, black or white, so sometimes they just give up and let people consider them as more or less white.

This is the backstory behind various notorious cases of “passing” as white, such as primordial jazz great Jelly Roll Morton and literary critic Anatole Broyard. Culturally dominant African-Americans tend to be peeved at Creoles of Color for not subscribing to the One Drop Rule.

The pope’s maternal grandparents, both of whom are described as Black or mulatto in various historical records, lived in the city’s Seventh Ward, an area that is traditionally Catholic and a melting pot of people with African, Caribbean and European roots.

On the other hand, how black the new Pope is can be exaggerated. Here’s his brother, who looks rather like Al Gore’s Harvard roommate Tommy Lee Jones:

The grandparents, Joseph Martinez and Louise Baquié, eventually moved to Chicago in the early 20th century and had a daughter: Mildred Martinez, the pope’s mother.

The discovery means that Leo XIV, as the pope will be known, is not only breaking ground as the first U.S.-born pontiff. He also comes from a family that reflects the many threads that make up the complicated and rich fabric of the American story.

The pope’s background was unearthed Thursday by a New Orleans genealogist, Jari C. Honora, and confirmed to The New York Times by the pope’s older brother, John Prevost, 71, who lives in the Chicago suburbs. …

Here are a couple of photos of the new Pope with the old Polish Pope.

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