The impact of the news that the new Pope Leo XIV has Louisiana Creole roots in the 7th Ward of New Orleans was palpable even here in California. Because for the first time the story of Creoles and their contributions to American history might take center stage in the dialogue we continue to have about race and power in the U.S.
The real story of Creole history in America has yet to be told to the uninitiated public. The Pope’s ancestry and the story of his heritage give writers, researchers, genealogists and historians a golden opportunity to unlock a hidden and suppressed story. Louisiana and Creole genealogists are passionate. There is a reason they are so passionate. Creole history tells the racial story of the U.S. in a completely different way.
Creole history has often been suppressed and distorted because it turns the history of the Americas and white supremacy on its head. When have schools ever taught that there was a group of whites, blacks and Native Americans who mixed to create a community of prosperous, free, well-educated people of color that controlled a major city? A community of people of color who cooperated, clashed and coexisted with their white kin? Or that this diverse, talented community of Creoles had their own language, foodways, institutions, social and literary clubs, schools and hospitals? That the Creole community started the Civil Rights Movement and the premier American art form, jazz?
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When have schools ever taught the story of the Venerable Henriette Delille? That she was a Creole of color who formed a Catholic Order of free women of color before the Civil War, which still exists today? Or that Delille has been one step away from Sainthood since 1989? When have schools taught how the Catholic tenet of one human race made Louisiana society so different before the Civil War? The church states that “the creative act of God, call on people to be one human family, made in God’s image and likeness”; the church in Louisiana recognized interracial marriage years before Anglos came to the state. What schools teach that when the new Anglos came to Louisiana (after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803) they were so covetous of what Creoles had that they made every effort possible to disrupt Creole society?
Creoles were proud, excited, overjoyed and quick to point out that they were related to Leo XIV in some way. But their enthusiasm and speed did the Pope, his family, and the larger Creole community a disservice.
Pigeonholing the new Pope Leo XIV as a Creole from the 7th Ward of New Orleans diminishes him and other Creoles. The Pope, like many Creoles, is a world citizen. The Pope has lived for decades in Peru and Italy and speaks several languages.
Creoles did not begin and end in Louisiana and New Orleans. A larger view of Creoles shows that there were Creole diasporas outside of the U.S., to Mexico, Haiti, France and Colombia before the Civil War. After the Civil War, Creoles continued to leave for other parts of the U.S. and to go abroad. The reasons for these exoduses need to be explained to put the Pope’s story in the context of U.S. history and changing racial attitudes during these times.
The Pope and his story also highlight one of the biggest untold stories about race here in the U.S.: that nearly 30 million people who identify as white in the U.S. have African DNA. Thousands of people a year pass into whiteness every year here; I call them the lost people of America. Louisiana, coincidentally, is the state with the most people claiming white identity who have African DNA.
Some of the Pope’s family were quick to point out that they don’t identify as black. In recounting my family story in my book Finding Octave: The Untold Story of Two Creole Families and Slavery in Louisiana I had to learn that valuable lesson about race in the U.S. the hard way: People, and even relatives, had personal and historical reasons for choosing and using different racial designations from yours even if they were your kin.
Pope Leo XIV has living relatives. In the Creole community’s rush to claim kinship and tell his story, his living relatives’ privacy and lives were never considered. They never got the chance to tell their own story.
Real Creole history is being overlooked by the current rush to connect the Pope’s story to Louisiana Creoles and talk about his family’s “passing.” Most Creoles understand that the constant fascination with stories about passing into whiteness is an Anglo/white obsession. Almost every Creole family has personal stories about some family member passing into whiteness, and for the most part, they don’t care.
These stories are designed to deflect, delay, and distort the actual history of Creoles. By retelling, or comparing the story of the Pope to other “passing” or “passe blanc” stories, news agencies, professional and amateur genealogists, and even some Creoles themselves, short-change the vast majority of Creoles who did not pass into whiteness. It diminishes not only the incredible Creole history of achievement against the racial background of U.S. and world history, but it rekindles the tired narrative of so many inane stories about “passing” being the only avenue for achievement.
Highlighting Creole history through those who passed into whiteness is reductive and is a disservice to all Creoles, because it spoon feeds readers with a standard story of people of color believing passing into whiteness as the only way to succeed. Nothing could be further from the truth for the vast majority of Creoles.
The Vatican is the world’s most powerful, wealthy, and well-managed sovereign religious state. They play the long game. And the Vatican is filled with some very smart people. They are thinking on a 25 to 100-year planning horizon. By taking the name Leo XIV, the new Pope is giving the world a hint about what might be his focus during his papacy. Leo XIII, the previous Pope named Leo, more than 100 years ago took up the cause of worker’s rights, fair wages and capitalism at the beginning of the Industrial Age. Leo XIV has already mentioned his concern about AI. Leo XIV’s election as the first American Pope with African ancestry in 2025 might be getting the world ready for the first African Pope sometime in the near future. Not coincidentally, Catholicism is growing fastest in the African continent.
The election of Leo XIV gives the Creole community center stage to tell our complicated history to America and the world for the first time. Let us hope that the new Pope’s election may also accelerate the process of helping another Creole of color, Henriette Delille, become a saint. My advice to Creoles is, slow down and get this important story right. Let’s tell our fabulous history with the care it so well deserves.
