The selection of Robert Frances Prevost as the first pope from the United States, and the subsequent revelation of his Creole roots, have brought those historical realities to the fore — and an interview with the pope’s brother John Prevost, 71, connected them to the present day.
Late Thursday, Mr. Prevost, who lives in the suburbs of Chicago, told The new York Times that his brothers always considered themselves to be white. As for his mother, he said, “I really couldn’t tell you for sure, she might have just said Spanish.”
And so, a story of American racial rigidity also suggests a certain fluidity, constrained by the often harsh racist past that is an inescapable part of the country’s story. New Orleans is not unique in its exposure to such stories. But it knows them well.
Jari Honora, a local genealogist and historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection, a museum in the French Quarter, discovered the new pope’s New Orleans roots on Thursday. Since then, he and others, including in the Dominican Republic, have been pushing to find out as much as they can about Leo’s family history.
