The pope's Creole roots in New Orleans are a source of pride among the city's Black Catholics. But the revelation also recalls a painful chapter in the city's past. “In New Orleans, everyone treats visitors as family.

This is like a reward from God,” a local parishioner said, as researchers unearthed more details about the lives of Leo XIV’s ancestors in the heart of the city’s Afro-Caribbean culture.

At services on Sunday, some Catholics took particular pride in the election of the first American pontiff, who has familial ties to multiple places across the country.