White smoke, Black pope? Pope Leo XIV, first American pontiff, has African roots

VATICAN CITY — The Catholic Church has a new leader, with the Augustinian cardinal Robert Prevost elected as Pope Leo XIV, his chosen name as Bishop of Rome. He is the first American pope and the first of African descent since the fifth century.

The understated candidate triumphed on the second day of voting in a count kept under permanent Vatican seal. The results were announced with white smoke in St. Peter’s Square Thursday evening, with the new pope making his first appearance to a crowd of more than a hundred thousand from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.

“Thank you to my cardinal brothers who chose me to be the successor of Peter and to walk together with you as a united Church searching all together for peace and justice,” the 69-year-old Chicago native said in a bilingual (Italian and Spanish) address that included odes of thanks to his predecessor, Pope Francis.

“We have to look together how to be a missionary Church, building bridges, dialogue, always open to receiving with open arms for everyone, like this square, open to all, to all who need our charity, our presence, dialogue, love.”

A member of a religious order named for the famous African saint Augustine of Hippo, Pope Leo XIV is also the first Roman pontiff of African ancestry since Pope St. Gelasius I, who died in 496 and was of Berber origin. 

Multiple genealogists, including the Louisiana Creole expert Jari Honora, traced Prevost’s ancestry to the Black community of New Orleans. His maternal ancestors lived in the Crescent City before migrating to Chicago in the early 20th century.

Leo XIV is not known to have publicly commented on his African ancestry, which is part of a mixed heritage that also includes French, Italian, and Spanish roots. According to the U.S. Census, Prevost’s mother, the late Mildred Martinez, was the mixed-race daughter of Black property owners, the Haitian-born Joseph Martinez and New Orleans native Louise Baquié, a Creole.

As such, Leo XIV could be considered the first Black pope in the history of the Catholic Church, though it is unclear how he identifies racially.

“It’s more complicated than that,” Honora told BCM. “I think that a person can be of Black ancestry or have Black roots, but to identify as Black, I think, is all about the lived experience.”

According to Holy See press director Matteo Bruni, the name Pope Leo XIV was chosen in reference to the pioneering Leo XIII, who reigned in the late 19th century. He steered the Church toward its teachings on justice and labor with his 1891 encyclical “Rerum Novarum,” an enduring text that continues to form a baseline for Catholic social teaching.

Born in 1955, Prevost was raised on the South Side of Chicago and ordained for the Augustinians in 1982. He then earned a doctorate in canon law at the Angelicum in Rome before embarking on a decade-plus stint in Peru, where he embedded himself in the community and became a beloved local figure. While there, he led an Augustinian seminary and served in the local diocesan chancery.

Prevost was elected provincial of the Chicago Augustinians in 1998 and served in the United States briefly before being elected head of the order globally, returning to Rome for 12 years beginning in 2001.

In 2015, Pope Francis named him Bishop of Chiclayo in Peru, after a year as apostolic administrator. He later served as a member of two Vatican departments, now known as the Dicastery for the Clergy and the Dicastery for Bishops. He was named the head of the latter in 2023, the same year Francis made him a cardinal.

Prior to the 2025 conclave, the largest and perhaps most diverse in history, Prevost was seen as papabile, though not a supremely strong candidate. Media observers had predicted that the Church could return to the Italian tradition for a new pope, or to new voices elsewhere in Western Europe, Asia, or Africa. An American pope was seen as only an outside possibility.

Perceived as a modern voice disconnected from at least some American cultural baggage—having lived in the country only briefly during the last quarter-century—Pope Leo XIV is likely to continue the legacy of Francis as it is popularly perceived.

If it serves as any indication, Leo’s personal Twitter account (which as of Thursday remains active) displays recent criticisms of the administration of President Donald Trump, advocacy against clerical sex abuse, endorsements of synodality, and the celebration of modern liturgies in a global context.

One common thread among them is, unsurprisingly, Pope Francis himself, who featured in Leo’s aforementioned opening address.

“Let us keep in our ears the weak but always brave voice of Pope Francis, who blessed Rome—the Pope who blessed Rome and the world that day on the morning of Easter,” he said, referring to the late Holy Father’s final hours, which included a surprise appearance in St. Peter’s Square in April.

“Allow me to continue that same blessing. God loves us, all of us, evil will not prevail. We are all in the hands of God. Without fear, united, hand in hand with God and among ourselves, we will go forward.”

Nate Tinner-Williams is co-founder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger.

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