Latest news with #Honora
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Chicago's Haitian community celebrates Pope Leo XIV's heritage
CHICAGO — Aline Lauture with the Haitian Congress Center was thrilled to learn Pope Leo XIV not only has ties to Chicago but to her ethnic background. 'This news, we just embrace the news,' Lauture said. 'The pope has Haitian roots, we're like, 'Yay!'' The City of Chicago was founded by a Haitian; Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. 'Now, the fact we share a cultural link, if not a kinship, with the pope is very important,' Jari Honora said. Pope Leo XIV: WGN's full coverage Honora, a New Orleans based genealogist, did some digging and found it was Pope Leo's maternal grandparents who are described as black of 'mulatto' in several census documents. 'Their names were Joseph Martinez and Louise Baquie,' Honora said. Honora found on their 1887 marriage license, Martinez listed his birthplace as Haiti. It was common for people of mixed French and Black Caribbean roots to settle in New Orleans, then many moved to Chicago during the Great Migration, including the pope's grandparents in 1911. Census documents in Chicago show his grandparents identified as white. Genealogists theorize they may have shifted their racial identity to assimilate. 'The fact they migrated from New Orleans to Chicago, and I migrated from Haiti to Chicago, it's a beautiful story,' Lauture said. More: Pope Leo XIV delivers first Sunday noon blessing, patrons at Chicago church embrace message of Chicago-born pontiff It was in the Windy City where the couple had Pope Leo's mother, Mildred Martinez. The family kept close to the Catholic Church. 'There was always an openness to accepting a call to religious vocation as a child. In and out of his home were a lot of their neighborhood priests because they liked his mom's cooking,' Honora said. 'Once I discovered they had ties to New Orleans, I said, 'No wonder they liked her cooking.'' Related: 'This is nuts': How Louis Prevost learned his brother had become pope Adding a rich cultural layer to the papacy, showcasing the melting pot of ethnic backgrounds in the United States. 'Haitians take pride in their religion. A lot of Haitians are Catholics,' Lauture said. 'I think he'll be a great pope for the world, for people who want someone to speak to them about being kind, being a good person, a good Catholic.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Los Angeles Times
11-05-2025
- General
- Los Angeles Times
Pope Leo's Creole heritage highlights complex history of racism and the church in America
NEW ORLEANS — The new pope's French-sounding last name, Prevost, intrigued Jari Honora, a New Orleans genealogist, who began digging in the archives and discovered the pope had deep roots in the Big Easy. All four of Pope Leo XIV's maternal great-grandparents were 'free people of color' in Louisiana, based on 19th century census records, Honora found. As part of the melting pot of French, Spanish, African and Native American cultures in Louisiana, the pope's maternal ancestors would be considered Creole. 'It was special for me because I share that heritage and so do many of my friends who are Catholic here in New Orleans,' said Honora, a historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection, a museum in the French Quarter. Honora and others in the Black and Creole Catholic communities say the election of Leo — a Chicago native who spent more than two decades in Peru, including eight years as a bishop — is just what the Roman Catholic Church needs to unify the global church and elevate the profile of Black Catholics, whose history and contributions have long been overlooked. Leo, who has not spoken openly about his roots, may also have an ancestral connection to Haiti. His grandfather, Joseph Norval Martinez, may have been born there, though historical records are conflicting, Honora said. But Martinez's parents — the pope's great-grandparents — were living in Louisiana since at least the 1850s, he said. Andrew Jolivette, a professor of sociology and Afro-Indigenous Studies at UC Santa Barbara, did his own digging and found the pope's ancestry reflected the unique cultural tapestry of southern Louisiana. The pope's Creole roots draw attention to the complex, nuanced identities Creoles hold, he said. 'There is Cuban ancestry on his maternal side. So, there are a number of firsts here and it's a matter of pride for Creoles,' said Jolivette, whose Creole family is from Louisiana. 'So, I also view him as a Latino pope because the influence of Latino heritage cannot be ignored in the conversation about Creoles.' Most Creoles are Catholic, and historically it was their faith that kept families together as they migrated to larger cities such as Chicago, Jolivette said. The former Cardinal Robert Prevost's maternal grandparents — identified as 'mulatto' and 'Black' in historical records — were married in New Orleans in 1887 and lived in the city's historically Creole 7th Ward. In the coming years, the Jim Crow regime of racial segregation rolled back post-Civil War reforms, and 'just about every aspect of their lives was circumscribed by race, extending even to the church,' Honora said. The pope's grandparents migrated to Chicago around 1910, like many other African American families leaving the racial oppression of the Deep South, and 'passed for white,' Honora said. The pope's Chicago-born mother, Mildred Agnes Martinez, is identified as 'white' on her 1912 birth certificate, Honora said. 'You can understand, people may have intentionally sought to obfuscate their heritage,' he said. 'Always life has been precarious for people of color in the South, New Orleans included.' The pope's grandparents' old home in New Orleans was later destroyed, along with hundreds of others, to build a highway overpass that 'eviscerated' a stretch of the largely Black neighborhood in the 1960s, Honora said. A former New Orleans mayor, Marc Morial, called the pope's family's history 'an American story of how people escape American racism and American bigotry.' As a Catholic with Creole heritage who grew up near the neighborhood where the pope's grandparents lived, Morial said he has contradictory feelings. While he's proud of the pope's connection to his city, Morial said the new pontiff's maternal family's shifting racial identity highlights 'the idea that in America people had to escape their authenticity to be able to survive.' The Rev. Ajani Gibson, who heads the predominantly Black congregation at St. Peter Claver Church in New Orleans, said he sees the pope's roots as a reaffirmation of African American influence on Catholicism in his city. 'I think a lot of people take for granted that the things that people love most about New Orleans are both Black and Catholic,' said Gibson, referring to rich cultural contributions to Mardi Gras, New Orleans jazz, and brass band parades known as second-lines. He hoped the pope's Creole heritage — emerging from the city's 'cultural gumbo pot' — signals an inclusive outlook for the Catholic Church. 'I want the continued elevation of the universal nature of the church — that the church looks, feels, sounds like everybody,' Gibson said. 'We all have a place and we come and bring who we are, completely and totally, as gifts to the church.' Shannen Dee Williams, a history professor at the University of Dayton, said she hopes that Leo's 'genealogical roots and historic papacy will underscore that all roads in American Catholicism, in North, South and Central America, lead back to the church's foundational roots in its mostly unacknowledged and unreconciled histories of Catholic colonialism, slavery and segregation.' 'There have always been two transatlantic stories of American Catholicism: one that begins with Europeans, and another one that begins with Africans and African-descended people, free and enslaved, living in Europe and Africa in the 16th century,' she said. 'Just as Black history is American history, [Leo's] story also reminds us that Black history is, and always has been, Catholic history, including in the United States.' Kim R. Harris, associate professor of African American Religious Thought and Practice at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, said the pope's genealogy got her thinking about the seven African American Catholics on the path to sainthood who have been recognized by the National Black Catholic Congress, but haven't yet been canonized. Harris highlighted Pierre Toussaint, a philanthropist born enslaved in Haiti who became a New York City entrepreneur and was declared 'Venerable' by Pope John Paul II in 1997. 'The excitement I have in this moment probably has to do with the hope that this pope's election will help move this canonization process along,' Harris said. While it's not known how Leo identifies himself racially, his roots bring a sense of hope to African American Catholics, she said. 'When I think about a person who brings so much of the history of this country in his bones, I really hope it brings to light who we are as Americans, and who we are as people of the diaspora,' she said. 'It brings a whole new perspective and widens the vision of who we all are.' Reynold Verret, president of Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans, the only historically Black Catholic university, said he was 'a little surprised' about the pope's heritage. 'It's a joyful connection,' he said. 'It is an affirmation that the Catholic Church is truly universal and that [Black] Catholics remained faithful regardless of a church that was human and imperfect. It also shows us that the church transcends national borders.' Brook and Bharath write for the Associated Press and reported from New Orleans and Los Angeles, respectively.
Winnipeg Free Press
10-05-2025
- General
- Winnipeg Free Press
Pope Leo XIV's Creole heritage highlights complex history of racism and the church in America
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The new pope's French-sounding last name, Prevost, intrigued Jari Honora, a New Orleans genealogist, who began digging in the archives and discovered the pope had deep roots in the Big Easy. All four of Pope Leo XIV's maternal great-grandparents were 'free people of color' in Louisiana based on 19th-century census records, Honora found. As part of the melting pot of French, Spanish, African and Native American cultures in Louisiana, the pope's maternal ancestors would be considered Creole. 'It was special for me because I share that heritage and so do many of my friends who are Catholic here in New Orleans,' said Honora, a historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection, a museum in the French Quarter. Honora and others in the Black and Creole Catholic communities say the election of Leo — a Chicago native who spent over two decades in Peru including eight years as a bishop — is just what the Catholic Church needs to unify the global church and elevate the profile of Black Catholics whose history and contributions have long been overlooked. A rich cultural identity Leo, who has not spoken openly about his roots, may also have an ancestral connection to Haiti. His grandfather, Joseph Norval Martinez, may have been born there, though historical records are conflicting, Honora said. However, Martinez's parents — the pope's great-grandparents — were living in Louisiana since at least the 1850s, he said. Andrew Jolivette, a professor of sociology and Afro-Indigenous Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, did his own digging and found the pope's ancestry reflected the unique cultural tapestry of southern Louisiana. The pope's Creole roots draw attention to the complex, nuanced identities Creoles hold, he said. 'There is Cuban ancestry on his maternal side. So, there are a number of firsts here and it's a matter of pride for Creoles,' said Jolivette, whose family is Creole from Louisiana. 'So, I also view him as a Latino pope because the influence of Latino heritage cannot be ignored in the conversation about Creoles.' Most Creoles are Catholic and historically it was their faith that kept families together as they migrated to larger cities like Chicago, Jolivette said. The former Cardinal Robert Prevost's maternal grandparents — identified as 'mulatto' and 'Black' in historical records — were married in New Orleans in 1887 and lived in the city's historically Creole Seventh Ward. In the coming years, the Jim Crow regime of racial segregation rolled back post-Civil War reforms and 'just about every aspect of their lives was circumscribed by race, extending even to the church,' Honora said. An American story of migration The pope's grandparents migrated to Chicago around 1910, like many other African American families leaving the racial oppression of the Deep South, and 'passed for white,' Honora said. The pope's mother, Mildred Agnes Martinez, who was born in Chicago, is identified as 'white' on her 1912 birth certificate, Honora said. 'You can understand, people may have intentionally sought to obfuscate their heritage,' he said. 'Always life has been precarious for people of color in the South, New Orleans included.' The pope's grandparents' old home in New Orleans was later destroyed, along with hundreds of others, to build a highway overpass that 'eviscerated' a stretch of the largely Black neighborhood in the 1960s, Honora said. A former New Orleans mayor, Marc Morial, called the pope's family's history, 'an American story of how people escape American racism and American bigotry.' As a Catholic with Creole heritage who grew up near the neighborhood where the pope's grandparents lived, Morial said he has contradictory feelings. While he's proud of the pope's connection to his city, Morial said the new pontiff's maternal family's shifting racial identity highlights 'the idea that in America people had to escape their authenticity to be able to survive.' African American influence on Catholicism The Rev. Ajani Gibson, who heads the predominantly Black congregation at St. Peter Claver Church in New Orleans, said he sees the pope's roots as a reaffirmation of African American influence on Catholicism in his city. 'I think a lot of people take for granted that the things that people love most about New Orleans are both Black and Catholic,' said Gibson, referring to rich cultural contributions to Mardi Gras, New Orleans' jazz tradition and brass band parades known as second-lines. He hoped the pope's Creole heritage — emerging from the city's 'cultural gumbo pot' — signals an inclusive outlook for the Catholic Church. 'I want the continued elevation of the universal nature of the church — that the church looks, feels, sounds like everybody,' Gibson said. 'We all have a place and we come and bring who we are, completely and totally, as gifts to the church.' Shannen Dee Williams, a history professor at the University of Dayton, said she hopes that Leo's 'genealogical roots and historic papacy will underscore that all roads in American Catholicism, in North, South and Central America, lead back to the church's foundational roots in its mostly unacknowledged and unreconciled histories of Catholic colonialism, slavery and segregation.' 'There have always been two trans-Atlantic stories of American Catholicism; one that begins with Europeans and another one that begins with Africans and African-descended people, free and enslaved, living in Europe and Africa in the 16th century,' she said. 'Just as Black history is American history, (Leo's) story also reminds us that Black history is, and always has been, Catholic history, including in the United States.' Hope for the future Kim R. Harris, associate professor of African American Religious Thought and Practice at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, said the pope's genealogy got her thinking about the seven African American Catholics on the path to sainthood who have been recognized by the National Black Catholic Congress, but haven't yet been canonized. Harris highlighted Pierre Toussaint, a philanthropist born in Haiti as a slave who became a New York City entrepreneur and was declared 'Venerable' by Pope John Paul II in 1997. 'The excitement I have in this moment probably has to do with the hope that this pope's election will help move this canonization process along,' Harris said. While it's not known how Leo identifies himself racially, his roots bring a sense of hope to African American Catholics, she said. 'When I think about a person who brings so much of the history of this country in his bones, I really hope it brings to light who we are as Americans, and who we are as people of the diaspora,' she said. 'It brings a whole new perspective and widens the vision of who we all are.' Reynold Verret, president of Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans, the only historically Black Catholic university, said he was 'a little surprised' about the pope's heritage. 'It's a joyful connection,' he said. 'It is an affirmation that the Catholic Church is truly universal and that (Black) Catholics remained faithful regardless of a church that was human and imperfect. It also shows us that the church transcends national borders.' ___ Winnipeg Jets Game Days On Winnipeg Jets game days, hockey writers Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe send news, notes and quotes from the morning skate, as well as injury updates and lineup decisions. Arrives a few hours prior to puck drop. Bharath reported from Los Angeles. ___ Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Axios
09-05-2025
- General
- Axios
How Pope Leo's Creole roots in New Orleans tell "an American story"
Pope Leo XIV may have been born in Chicago, but he has Creole roots in New Orleans. Why it matters: The new pope, formerly known as Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, has a family history that tells a uniquely American story. Catch up quick: Once Prevost was elevated to Pope Leo XIV on Thursday, Historic New Orleans Collection genealogist Jari Honora got curious and immediately researched his family background. Based on the name Prevost, Honora tells Axios New Orleans, "I honestly was not looking for an immediate Louisiana connection. ... But on his mother's side, they are definitely from New Orleans." Honora's research shows that Pope Leo's maternal grandparents were Joseph Martinez and Louise Baquié, who lived in the 7th Ward. They married at Our Lady of Sacred Heart Church in 1887 before moving to Chicago between 1910 and 1912. That move makes Pope Leo's family part of the early, Jim Crow-era Black diaspora from the American South known as the Great Migration. During a stretch of time between about 1915 and 1970, about 6 million Black southerners left the Deep South, according to historian Isabel Wilkerson in her book "The Warmth of Other Suns." "The Great Migration would become a turning point in history," she wrote. "It would transform urban America and recast the social and political order of every city it touched." Chicago was a common landing place, according to Wilkerson, with its Black population expanding from about 44,000 to more than 1 million people. In other words, as Honora says, Pope Leo's story "is absolutely an American story." The intrigue: For some migrants, leaving the South also meant a chance to change how they presented, which Prevost's family did, Honora says. "Fairly consistently, they are listed in census and other records in New Orleans as Black and 'mulatto,'" he says. "But once they migrate to Chicago, those identifiers are all switched to white." In New Orleans, there's a Creole term — " passé blanc" — for people of color who can "pass" for white. "That's just not surprising for families that are in the process of passing. I don't fault them at all," Honora says. "I see it as a decision to safeguard their livelihoods, and an economic decision both to leave New Orleans and go to larger cities in the North, as well as to shift racial identities." What he's saying: John Prevost, the pope's brother, tells the New York Times that his family did not discuss their Creole ancestry. "It was never an issue," he said. Fun fact: New Orleans Archdiocese records indicate that Pope Leo's maternal great-grandmother Eugenie Grambois was baptized at the St. Louis Cathedral on Jan. 8, 1840. She later married Ferdinand D. Baquié on Sept. 19, 1864 at St. Mary's Church on Chartres Street, church records indicate. What it means to be "Creole" Flashback: New Orleans has been culturally diverse since its founding as a French city, and its complicated history includes periods as being both the home to one of the largest populations of free people of color and as the site of one of the largest markets for enslaved people. New Orleans' Creole population was born of that history. "Most people link 'Creole' to being mixed race, or they link it to something related to race as a whole, and it is not," Honora clarifies. "It's shared by people who are white, who are Black, indigenous or any combination thereof." To be Creole, says Honora, who counts himself as such, is to be "solidly rooted in Latin-based, Roman Catholic cultural practices in the New World, and particularly Louisiana."
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Pope Leo XIV Descended from Creole People of Color, Records Show
Census records from the 1900s show Pope Leo XIV's grandparents had Creole lineage His grandparents reportedly lived in the Seventh Ward of New Orleans before moving to Chicago Pope Leo XIV is making history as the first-ever American-born pontiffPope Leo XIV has Creole lineage from New Orleans, according to records shared after his election. Joseph Martinez and Louise Baquié, the maternal grandparents of Robert Prevost, 69, who was selected as the successor to Pope Francis on Thursday, May 8, lived in the Seventh Ward of New Orleans before moving to Chicago in the early 1900s, according to The New York Times. The couple were listed as Black in census records from 1900, Jari C. Honora, a family historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection, shared on Facebook and with CNN. Records show Joseph, Pope Leo XIV's grandfather, was listed as a cigar maker born in 'Hayti.' Honora said the couple were married in 1887 and 'left New Orleans and went to Chicago between 1910 and 1912.' 'Our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, has Creole of color roots from New Orleans on his mother's side!' Honora wrote on social media alongside images of the records. 'What a great connection for our local population!' Mildred Martinez Prevost, the new pontiff's mother, was born in 1912 after her parents moved to Chicago, according to records Honora shared with CNN. John Prevost, the Pope's 71-year-old brother, confirmed the family's lineage to the Times. Pope Leo XIV is the first-ever American-born pontiff. He was born in Chicago and gained missionary experience in Peru, serving as the bishop of the city of Chiclayo. In 2023, he was appointed by Francis to the Dicastery for Bishops, which oversees the selection of new bishops from across the globe. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Speaking in Italian and Spanish to a sea of supporters in St. Peter's Square in his first speech as pontiff, Pope Leo XIV told onlookers, "peace be with you all." He also declared, "God loves us, God loves you all and evil will not prevail." Read the original article on People
