When Henry Louis Gates Jr. set out to trace the family tree of America's first pope, he had no idea he was about to uncover ...

Pope Leo received an official copy of his family tree, which includes his ties to "free people of color" in New Orleans.

But beyond the celeb connections, Gates’ research uncovered something far more powerful: Pope Leo XIV is of mixed Black and ...

New Orleans genealogist Jari C. Honora confirmed the pope’s ancestry and her findings were published in a May 10 article in the New York Times. “Thanks to the brilliant detective work of Jari ...

Pope Leo XIV’s maternal grandparents were black or mixed and of Creole descent, moving from New Orleans to Chicago at the turn of the 20th century, reports said Friday. “The family were free ...

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 ...

Pope Leo XIV, who is the first American pope in history, has lineage among “free people of color” in the U.S. dating back to at least the 1840s, a genealogist told Forbes.

Lee says now that Pope Leo's ancestry is known to the public, neither the Catholic Church nor the American public can ignore issues of race. "First and foremost: race is a social construct," Lee said.

Pope Leo XIV's maternal grandparents were black or mixed and of Creole descent, moving from New Orleans to Chicago at the turn of the 20th century, reports said Friday.