Pope Leo XIV’s Hidden American Ancestry
Pope Francis made history being the first Pope from the New World, and history has been made yet again, with Robert Prevost being the first Pope from the United States. His ancestry mirrors that of many of us: it is a story of immigration, but it may also be a story of hidden identities.
Robert Prevost was born in 1955 in Chicago, IL to Louis M. Prevost and Mildred Martinez. His father Louis worked as a principal of a public school in Dolton. The 1950 census shows they had a nine year old foster son, Raymond Fuller.
The Pope’s father, Louis M. Prevost
Louis grew up in Chicago to two immigrant parents. His father, John Prevost, was born in Italy in 1877 and his mother, Suzanne Fabre, was born in France in 1897. According to both Louis and his brother’s WWII draft registration cards, the family lived at 5465 Ellis Ave in Chicago, IL; however, this address - a humble brick apartment building - appears to not have been enumerated on the 1940 census. Curiously, Louis and his family cannot be located at all in the 1940 census (nor can the Prevost family be located on any census in Illinois before 1950). However, through searching through the censuses of this neighborhood, one can get a glimpse into what Louis’ life may have looked like at this address. This was no single family household neighborhood. It housed the dormitories of the University of Chicago. It housed the Church Home for the Aged. It housed the Chicago Home for the Incurable. There were so many institutions, in fact, that when the enumerator approached an area that had simple apartment buildings, they’d note “no farms in this district” across the page.
This was a neighborhood full of humble apartment buildings with immigrants and first-generation Americans - including Louis’ family. Without a census, we don’t know what Louis’ parents did for work at this time, but the 1950 census shows that Louis’ father John worked as a romance language teacher at a private school of language. Louis himself was well-educated, graduating from the Central Y.M.C.A College in 1943. This school’s enrollment was made up almost entirely of ethnic and religious minorities: more than 25% of the body were Black Americans and it also included large student populations of religious minorities like Jews and - notably - Catholics. Soon after Louis graduated, the college’s President, Edward Sparling, had recently been dismissed, and he followed his dismissal up with racial discrimination accusations against the school board who - it would seem - was not pleased with the student body demographics. The majority of the student body followed their president to the newly incorporated Roosevelt College, and the Central Y.M.C.A College closed in 1945.
After college, Louis served in the European theater in WWII.
Surprisingly, it is difficult to trace Louis’ parents John (or Jean) and Suzanne any further back. Louis’ older brother was born in Lackawanna, NY in 1917, indicating that John and Suzanne may have come from Canada.
The Pope’s mother, Mildred Martinez
Mildred was born in Illinois in 1911 to Joseph Martinez and Louise Baquiex, who spearheaded a large devout Catholic family from Louisiana. While the official word out of the Vatican is that Pope Leo has “Spanish” ancestry on his mom’s side, this doesn’t tell the entire truth. The 1910 census indicates that while Joseph’s mother was Spanish, his father was Maltese. The 1900 census says something a little different: that Joseph was born in Haiti, that both his parents were born in Louisiana, and that he - and Louise - were both Black.
This seems to be the truth. Joseph and Louise’s marriage record indicates that Joseph was a native of Haiti, and all of the records Joseph and Louise appear on until the 1910 Federal Census indicate them and their children as colored or Mulatto.
It seems that, despite a stint in Santo Domingo, the Martinez family had deep roots in Louisiana going back decades to New Spain. Louise’s parents - Ferdinand Baquie and Eugiene Grambois, are both listed across all records as Mulatto as well.
It isn’t entirely clear why the family decided to move north to Chicago by 1920 where Mildred was born, but their records in Illinois all list their race as white. The family first settled at 63 West Superior, just west of Chicago’s famous Magnificent Mile. Joseph died in 1926, and by 1930 the family had moved a few blocks east to 881 N. Rush Street.
So, what does this all mean?
Whether Robert Prevost knew of his mother’s family’s identity or not is questionable, as is whether they truly were meaning to hide it. Ultimately, Pope Leo XIV’s American ancestry is an exemplar of the melting pot of American history: of colonialism, of immigration, of hardship and opportunity. His personal family history is unique compared to those of all the other Popes in the history of the Catholic Church, and now more than ever, it is important to uplift these stories of immigration and diversity: stories that have been engrained in American society for centuries.