Done made my vow to the Lord,
And I never will turn back,
Oh I will go,
I shall go
to see what the end will be.
I must admit, I believed the pundits when they said we would never have a pope from the United States. When the white smoke appeared from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel on May 8, I waited anxiously to receive the news of our new Holy Father: Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who took the name Leo XIV.
About an hour and a half later, reports emerged that the new pontiff has ancestral ties to Louisiana Creoles. This was thanks to genealogists Jari Honora, Jamarlon Glenn, and others. My heart was elated with joy and pride because I knew, “He’s one of us!”
John Prevost, the brother of Pope Leo, confirmed their connection to Louisiana in speaking with the New York Times. However, he said he and his brothers never talked about it and suggested they do not identify as Black. As a native of Louisiana and a person of Creole ancestry, I know about the complicated history of race and what families endured to make a better life for themselves in the United States.
Over the past several days, I have also reflected on the complicated history of the Catholic Church and its relationship to the enslavement of Indigenous people and Africans, and to the Transatlantic Slave Trade. I love this Church because of the Eucharist, but I am painfully aware that fallible men govern it.
Let’s begin with Acts 8:26-40, the story of the Ethiopian Eunuch’s conversion to Christianity. The eunuch is undeniably Black, and the story signifies the birth of Christianity in Africa. Furthermore, this story appears even before St. Paul's conversion. Needless to say, the Church was already in Africa before the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade.
Considering its later history, here are some events that highlight the Church’s treatment of Africans, and the triumph of these people despite the Church. This list comes courtesy of a broader chronology created by Dr. Ronald LaMarr Sharps of Montclair State University:
- June 18, 1452: Pope Nicholas V promulgates “Dum Diversas,” authorizing Portugal and Spain to press into perpetual slavery the enemies of Christ, thus facilitating the slave trade in West Africa.
- May 4, 1493: Pope Alexander VI promulgates “Inter Caetera,” authorizing Portugal and Spain to colonize the discovered New World and enslave its inhabitants. According to the papal bull, by the “authority of Almighty God” and “the fullness of our apostolic power,” lands not inhabited by Christians could be “discovered” and exploited by Christian rulers charged with evangelizing any indigenous peoples. This “Doctrine of Discovery” becomes the basis for all European claims in the Americas and for the United States’ western expansion.
- June 2, 1537: Pope Paul III promulgates “Sublimis Deus,” forbidding enslavement of indigenous peoples in the Americas and elsewhere, though colonists and conquistadors ignore the document.
- March 1685: King Louis XIV of France issues the first “Code Noir,” outlining slavery in the French colonies, limiting the activities of free Blacks, and requiring conversion to Catholicism. As the first formal codification of slave laws in the Americas, the code is applied to the West Indies in 1687, Guyana in 1704, and the Louisiana Colony in 1724.
- 1779: Jean-Baptiste Pointe du Sable (ca.1745–1818), a hunter/trader of African descent, establishes the first permanent settlement in what would become Chicago.
- November 1836: The Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a community for women of color, is founded in New Orleans by the free-born Henriette Diaz Delille (1813–1862) and Haitian-born Juliette Gaudin (1808–1887). Formed to evangelize Blacks, the community receives formal approval as the Sisters of the Holy Family on November 21, 1842.
- December 15, 1858: Alexander Sherwood Healy (1836–1875) is ordained a priest in Paris for the Archdiocese of Boston. He serves as a theologian at the First Vatican Council (1870).
- July 31, 1874: Fr Patrick F. Healy, SJ, is inaugurated president of Georgetown University, the first African American to head a predominantly White university.
- June 2, 1875: James A. Healy is ordained Bishop of Portland, Maine, the nation’s first African-American Catholic bishop
- April 24, 1886: Augustus Tolton (1854–1897), born to enslaved parents, is ordained a priest in Rome. Tolton is the first recognizable Black priest in the U.S. and the founder of Chicago’s first Black parish: St. Monica’s.
- November 14, 1958: Condemning Jim Crow laws, the U.S. bishops issue the pastoral letter, “Discrimination and the Christian Conscience.”
- May 6, 1962: Martin de Porres (born Juan Martín de Porres Veláquez; 1579–1639) is canonized by Pope John XXIII. A mulatto from Lima, Peru. Martin became a Dominican lay brother in 1603 and ministered to the enslaved.
- January 6, 1966: Harold R. Perry, SVD (1916–1991) is ordained a bishop, becoming auxiliary bishop of New Orleans, the first Black bishop in the U.S. since Bishop James Healy (d. 1900).
- November 14, 1979: The U.S. bishops issue the pastoral letter “Brothers and Sisters to Us,” declaring racism a sin.
- December 13, 1983: Wilton D. Gregory (b. 1947) is ordained a bishop, becomes auxiliary bishop of Chicago.
- September 9, 1984: What We Have Seen and Heard, the first joint pastoral letter of the U.S. Black bishops, is issued.
- September 12, 1987: Pope John Paul II, while in New Orleans, addresses Black Catholics and is presented with resolutions of the National Black Catholic Congress. It is the first time that a pope has met with Black Catholics in the U.S. as a body.
- November 14, 2018: The U.S. bishops issue “Open Wide Our Hearts: The Enduring Call to Love—A Pastoral Letter Against Racism”.
- November 28, 2020: Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Washington is made the first African-American cardinal.
- May 8, 2025: Cardinal Robert Prevost is elected Pope Leo XIV—the fourth Bishop of Rome with African ancestry.
The above events highlight the struggle enslaved persons endured because of the Church, how the slave trade influenced Catholic culture in Louisiana and Chicago, and the resiliency of the descendants community. Reflecting on this list, you can see the damage caused by Pope Nicholas V with his papal bulls and how Pope Paul III tried to reverse course 85 years later and forbid slavery, though no one listened to him. Furthermore, the list shows how the papacy and the U.S. bishops later played their part by issuing pastoral letters against slavery and racism.
The French colonization of Louisiana began in 1682, and a significant legal framework was established in 1724 with Gov. Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville's enactment of Louisiana’s own “Code Noir". Among other things, it compelled the conversion of enslaved Africans to Catholicism. Following a period of Spanish rule starting in 1763, Louisiana became a U.S. territory in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase. The confluence of African, French, and Spanish cultures in New Orleans gave rise to the distinct heritage of the Louisiana Creoles, a group whose lineage includes Pope Leo XIV.
The story of the Healy brothers, the first Black priests in the United States, is of particular interest. The Jesuit priest Patrick Healy, an influential president of Georgetown University, concealed his African ancestry, as did other members of his family. Several became prominent figures in the nation and the Church. In his “History of Black Catholics in the United States,” the African-American Benedictine priest Cyprian Davis laments:
“They never used their position to champion the cause of their fellow Blacks. Nor did they ever give their fellow Blacks the opportunity to bask in the reflected glory of their own noteworthy achievements.”
I will not be one to judge why the Prevost family did not discuss their racial heritage, but I will take a cue from the person Pope Leo XIV is honoring with his choice of papal name.
Pope Leo XIII was the father of Catholic social teaching. He also canonized St. Peter Claver, the Spanish-born Jesuit who ministered to Blacks in Colombia. Leo XIII was an outspoken advocate for those mistreated by missionaries and called for an end to slavery in Brazil and in Africa.
Pope Leo XIV was born in Chicago, a city founded by a Catholic with African ancestry. He is a member of the Augustinians, an order named after the North African saint Augustine of Hippo, and did mission work in Peru, where the Black saint Martin de Porres brought Christ to the enslaved.
My reflection is about acknowledging the achievement of a holy man, Pope Leo XIV, who now leads the Church that disenfranchised his ancestors. So, as a Louisiana Catholic boy myself, I will celebrate this accomplishment.
“Oh, I will go, I shall go to see what the end will be.”
Darrell Anthony St. Romain is a published author, scholar, and organist. He recently completed the Doctor of Pastoral Music degree at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University and is the Director of Sacred Music at St. Mary Catholic Church in Temple, Texas. His research interests include Black Catholic congregational song and inculturation, especially the engagement of multilingual and multiethnic worship services. He has been published in “The Hymn” and “The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology” and holds organ performance and sacred music degrees from Louisiana State University and SMU.
