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.

Pope Leo XIV is registered to vote in the United States and has previously voted in some Republican primaries, but he is not registered as a member of a political party.