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,

ROME — The new Chicago-raised Pope Leo XIV faces an immediate challenge in his native country: taming the brawling U.S. tribe of Catholics, riven by political divisions that have thwarted the will of his predecessors.

Robert Francis Prevost, 69, will be the 267th occupant of the throne of St Peter and he will be known as Leo XIV. He is the first American to fill the role of pope, although he is considered as much a cardinal from Latin America because of the many years he spent as a missionary in Peru.