When Pope Leo XIV emerged on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica as the brand new head of the Catholic Church on Thursday, the Rev. Lawrence Ndlovu of Johannesburg couldn’t assist however surprise on the shade of his pores and skin.
“‘You’re not the classical white form of individual,’” Father Ndlovu mentioned he had been pondering whereas watching from South Africa. “However I couldn’t work out, What are you?”
The revelation that Pope Leo is descended from Creole people of color from New Orleans, together with some with potential ties to the Caribbean, has excited Father Ndlovu and different Catholics around the globe, notably these in Africa and different locations with deep African ancestry. A number of have mentioned they noticed him as one among their very own — somebody they might higher relate to and who might champion their causes.
“He’s not overseas to us,” Father Ndlovu mentioned. “There is part of him that can also be us.”
There stays some uncertainty round Leo’s racial ancestry.
Varied data listed his maternal grandfather’s birthplace because the Dominican Republic, “Hayti” or Louisiana and describe his maternal grandparents as Black or mulatto. They as soon as lived within the Seventh Ward in New Orleans, an space that’s historically Catholic and a melting pot of individuals with African, Caribbean and European roots.
Edwin Espinal Hernández, the director of the regulation college and a genealogist on the Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra within the Dominican Republic, mentioned he and different consultants had discovered some indications that the pope’s grandfather was born in Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.
Leo’s brother John Prevost, who lives within the suburbs of Chicago, mentioned the household doesn’t determine as Black.
However that has not stopped some from embracing him as being of African ancestry.
Robson Querino do Nascimento, a church upkeep employee in Rio de Janeiro, mentioned he believed the brand new pontiff’s ancestry made him extra more likely to work to higher the plight of Black and poor individuals.
Greater than half of the inhabitants in Brazil identifies as Black or mixed-race, and the nation’s lengthy historical past of slavery means racial identities are sometimes complicated.
“He is aware of what human struggling seems like,” Mr. Nascimento, 52, mentioned. “As a result of there are individuals of coloration in his household as nicely.”
Leo’s ancestry introduced a way of ease to some South Africans who had feared that he may be like President Trump and that his choice represented a consolidation of American energy, mentioned Father Ndlovu, who runs the principle Catholic cathedral in Johannesburg.
In Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, many Catholics had hoped that their archbishop, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, would develop into pope and chart a brand new course for the church in Africa, the place it’s rising sooner than anyplace else. However some noticed Leo as possessing the background to characterize African pursuits, mentioned the Rev. Léonard Santedi, the chancellor of the Catholic College of Congo.
“Given his multicultural background,” Father Santedi mentioned, “we additionally hope it can assist him embrace and characterize world range.”
Reporting was contributed by Ana Ionova from Rio de Janeiro, Frances Robles from Florida, Jack Buunda from Kinshasa, Lynsey Chutel from London and Ruth Maclean.
