Pope Leo Xiv’s family tree has everything

Shortly after the election of Pope Leo XIV on May 8, the genealogists began investigating their family tree, quickly establishing that some of their ancestors by maternal were Afro -descendants.

More recently, a team of experts led by Harvard historian Henry Louis Gates Jr., presenter of Finding Your Roots (Finding your roots) and other popular historical documentary programs in PBS, deepened much more, tracking the ancestry of the Pope born in the United States up to 15 generations behind, reaching the 16th century.

In the process, they also ran into the curious origins of the last name Prevost of Robert, which comes from a marriage scandal that was news in the local press of the time.

The team’s findings, which The New York Times published on June 11 as a reportage Interactive, they amazed Gates, who described the multicultural origins of the Pope as “one of the most diverse family trees we have created.”

Of the more than 100 ancestors identified so far, they were born in France (40), Italy (24), Spain (21), United States (22), Cuba (10), Canada (6), Haiti (1) and the Guadalupe archipelago (1). They include African slaves and slave owners, at least two fighters for freedom and several distant celebrities.

“Through a distant maternal ancestor, born in the 1590s, Pope León is Ninth Primo, in different degrees, of some known figures, including Pierre and Justin Trudeau, Hillary Clinton, Angelina Jolie, Justin Bieber, Jack Kerouac and Madonna,” Gates said.

For an American prelate contacted by the National Catholic Register, the findings of the researchers provide a deeper understanding of the people, cultures and personal stories that have shaped the character and vision of the humanity of Leo XIV.

“The diverse ancestry of Pope León is a blessing for peoples and nations around the world, making him a spiritual father for all,” the Archbishop of Las Vegas, Mons. George Leo Thomas, told the Register.

“Clearly, there is space in the heart of Pope León for people from all nations, large and small equally,” he added. “His ministry remembers the words attributed to Pope San Juan XXIII: ‘There will always be a small light on my window. Everyone can enter. A friend’s arms wait.”

Why “Prevost”?

While the maternal branch has aroused interest to the possibility that Pope León is the first black Pope, the family’s paternal branch also attracts attention, especially the unusual way in which the Pope obtained his last name.

Pope Leo XIV was born as Robert Francis Prevost in Chicago (United States) in 1955. He obtained his father’s last name, Louis Lanti Marius Prevost (1920-1997), who received him from his mother’s mother’s bachelorette name.

This is not how most people get their last name, which normally comes from the father. In the case of Pope León’s father, the last name arose due to a scandal that was news in the local press 108 years ago.

The Pope’s paternal grandfather, Salvatore Giovanni Gaetano Riggitano (1876-1960), emigrated to the United States from Sicily in 1903 and became a professor of Romance languages, especially Italian, French and Spanish. It seems to be called Giovanni.

In April 1914, he married Daisy Hughes (1875-1939) in the Baptist Church Immanuel de Chicago. The boyfriend was 37 years old and the bride 38, According to the marriage certificate.

The wedding circumstances, probably of mixed faith, suggest that he violated a Vatican decree called Fearwhich entered into force in 1908 and demanded that the Catholics have their marriage witnessed by a priest who was the Catholic pastor or his delegate and by two other people, and registered in the parish where he was celebrated, explained David Long, expert in canonical law and dean of the School of Professional Studies of the Catholic University of America.

“According to a superficial review of the marriage license, I do not believe that those requirements have been met in this case, so the sacramental validity of the Riggitano-Hughes marriage is already questionable, although its civil status is not,” said Long, author of Newman, Canon Law, and Development: Quarrying Granite Rocks With Razors (May 2025).

Less than three years later, in March 1917, Daisy Hughes Riggitano arrested her husband under suspicion of adultery, at a time when she was not only illegal but also civilly punishable. Shortly after a 23 -year -old woman was also arrested, who had left Chicago shortly before, Chico, Illinois, about 350 kilometers southwest Chicago.

Giovanni’s brother -in -law dijo a The Quincy Daily Herald that everything was a misunderstanding and that Giovanni and the young woman would soon be declared innocent.

About two years before the arrests, the second woman, Suzanne Fontaine, had emigrated from her home in Normandy (France) to New York, where Jeanne d’Ar arc was housed at the home “For French girls without friends”, According to the New York State Census of 1915. He later moved to Chicago.

It is not clear what happened in the legal case against Giovanni and Suzanne. But in July 1917, about four months after the arrests, Suzanne gave birth to a child In a home for single mothers In Lackawanna, New York, south of Buffalo.

Suzanne gave birth again in July 1920, to a boy named Louis, who would later be the father of Pope León.

Giovanni and Suzanne lived together the rest of Giovanni’s life. Both adopted the last name Premost – the single name of Suzanne’s mother – and gave it to their two children. Giovanni began to be called John, the English form of his name.

A private marriage?

The genealogists have not found evidence that Giovanni and Daisy would divorce.

Nor have they found, until now, public records that Giovanni and Suzanne will marry.

But could they have married privately in the Catholic Church?

It is possible, Long al Register told, under certain provisions of the Code of Canon Law of 1917.

“I think the evidence shows that there would have been no prior canonical or sacramental link between Riggitano and Hughes, which would have allowed the canonical marriage of Riggitano and Fontaine,” Long said.

“If they looked for such marriage in the Church, it would have been a ‘marriage of consciousness’ according to the norms” of canon law, Long added, “a fully valid sacrament in the eyes of the Church, but kept secret and not registered before the civil authorities.”

However, records that establish such arrangement have emerged.

“As always, the priority of the Church (it is) defending the holiness and indissolubility of marriage, but also to carefully care for souls in irregular situations. If a Catholic couple (Riggitano and Fontaine) really had no impediment in the eyes of God, the Church could validate their union sacramentally, even if civil society did not recognize it, provided that the sacramental marriage did not produce public scandal or legal conflict,”

A memorable family tree

Whatever the origins of their relationship, the Premost lived as Catholics. Giovanni/John had a Catholic funeral mass when he died in 1960, just like Suzanne in 1979. His scheme described her as Carmelite of the third order, that is, theory member of the religious order that voluntarily assumed Carmelite spiritual practices.

The Premost raised their two children as Catholics, and faith endured. The eldest son was described as a “daily commune” when he died in February 1996, According to a scheme. The child became a father’s father.

The Register asked several Catholic clergy about the unusual ancestry of the Pope.

“Well, we all have some crazy people who fall from our family tree. It is interesting that your last name is Premost and takes it as a legacy of an impure union,” said Mons. Charles Pope, Parish priest of the Holy Comforter-ST Church. Cyprian in Washington DCand author of The Hell There Is: An Exploration of an Often-Rejected Doctrine of the Church (March 2025), responded by email. “However, God can open the way where there is no and write straight with crooked lines of our ancestry.”

As for the situation of the Pope’s grandparents, Archbishop Thomas said that Jesus’ genealogy in chapter 1 of the Matthew Gospel has been an obstacle to some, because, together with holy and unknown people, it includes idolaters, murderers, prostitutes and adulterers.

“The life of Jesus is not based on greatness and human achievements, but on forgiveness, mercy and hope. This is our inheritance,” said Archbishop Thomas.

“The genealogy of Jesus, instead of being a source of shame, is a reason for joy. It stands out as a lighthouse of hope, a light in the dark and a proclamation that no one is beyond the reach of the cross,” he said. “This will be the lasting message of Pontificate of Pope Leo XIV.”

Translated and adapted by the ACI Press team. Originally published in the National Catholic Register.