Pope’s Family History Offers a Glimpse Into the American Creole Journey

After his father passed away, Mark Charles Roudané, a retired schoolteacher from Minnesota, began sifting through his father’s papers. Among the neatly labeled folders chronicling a life as a white, Presbyterian businessman in the Midwest, one stood out — unmarked and containing a single photograph. The image was of a Black man named Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez, a prominent physician in New Orleans who co-founded two of the earliest Black-owned newspapers in the United States. To Mark’s astonishment, Dr. Roudanez was his great-great-grandfather.

“In a single moment, my sense of self completely shifted,” Mark recalled.

The news of Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, a Chicago-born cleric who rose to become Pope Leo XIV, having familial ties to New Orleans Creoles has captivated many. While the Pope’s immediate family identified as white, records from New Orleans just one generation earlier depict his maternal grandparents as “mulatto” or Black. For those unacquainted with Creole culture, such revelations are intriguing. However, for those with Creole heritage, they resonate deeply.

“Outside of New Orleans, people see me as white,” said Mark, now 73. “But in New Orleans, people look at me and immediately recognize my roots.”

The term “Creole” carries layered meanings. Historically, it referred to any child born in the New World colonies to European parents or, at times, to mixed-race individuals. In contemporary Louisiana, it most commonly describes people of mixed European, African, and Native American heritage. Louisiana Creoles often share cultural traits, including Catholic faith, French or Spanish surnames, and, in many cases, light skin that allows them to pass as white.

The origins of Creole identity trace back to the 18th and 19th centuries when New Orleans was a melting pot of European colonists, Afro-Caribbeans, Africans — both enslaved and free — and early Americans. The city developed a distinct culture, one more open to racial mixing than British colonies or the United States at large.

For Anglo-Americans, who often saw race as a binary construct — Black or white — the racial fluidity of Creole society was perplexing. According to Faustina DuCros, a professor at San Jose State University, the complexity of Creole identities posed a challenge to Jim Crow laws, which sought to enforce strict racial divisions. Despite efforts to segregate the races, some light-skinned Creoles in New Orleans accessed opportunities reserved for white people, blurring the lines of racial categorization.

Fatima Shaik, a 72-year-old writer who grew up in the Seventh Ward, the heart of Creole New Orleans, shared stories from her father about a light-skinned cousin. The cousin worked at a bank — a job denied to Black individuals — then returned home each evening to her Black family.

“No one at the bank questioned her,” Shaik said. “Or maybe some white folks were playing the same game we were.”

However, some Creoles who chose to pass as white had to sever ties with their Black relatives for self-protection. “Those who desperately wanted to be white often cut off contact with family members,” Shaik explained. “They’d drop their brothers and sisters like a hot potato.”

As Jim Crow restrictions tightened and industrial job opportunities beckoned, many Creoles left New Orleans during the Great Migration. They settled in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles, where they often encountered locals unfamiliar with the nuances of Creole identity. While some adopted Black identities, others were perceived as Latino, especially those with Spanish Creole surnames.

Andrew Jolivétte, a 49-year-old sociology professor at UC Santa Barbara, recounted how his relatives, who moved to California in 1960, struggled to define themselves. “They’d say, ‘I’m Black,’ and people would respond, ‘No, you’re not. You’re more white than Black,’” Jolivétte said. “It left them questioning who they really were.”

Wendy Gaudin, 54, whose Creole grandparents moved to California, recalled how racial ambiguity affected her own family during the era of school desegregation. “When busing started, teachers were required to categorize students,” she said. “I was labeled Native American, my sister Roslyn was classified as white, and my sister Leslie as Pacific Islander.”

Gaudin, who now teaches at Xavier University in New Orleans, said that such ambiguity could sometimes work to Creoles’ advantage. When her grandparents attempted to buy property in Los Angeles, they encountered a racial covenant barring Black residents. Gaudin’s light-skinned grandmother went to the bank, signed the papers, and purchased the land. Later, her darker-skinned grandfather moved in.

“Once the deed was done, there was nothing anyone could say,” Gaudin noted.

For some Creoles, moving away from New Orleans meant the chance to live as white without explicitly crafting a new identity. George Herriman, the creator of the comic strip ‘Krazy Kat,’ was assumed to be Greek by his peers. Similarly, Anatole Broyard, a renowned New York literary critic, kept his Creole heritage hidden until after his death.

Mark Roudané’s family also chose to shed their Creole identity. In 1946, his grandmother legally altered their surname, likely to obscure their origins. Soon after, her son enrolled at Tulane University, then an all-white institution. He moved to the Midwest and lived the rest of his life as a white man.

When Mark began sharing his newfound Creole heritage with friends, the reactions were mixed. “People were confused,” he said. “‘Are you Black? Are you white?’ they’d ask.”

But in New Orleans, the complexity of his background made perfect sense. Mark became a student of Creole history, immersing himself in the city’s cultural legacy. For him, the recent revelations about Pope Leo XIV’s Creole roots evoke that same mix of recognition and dissonance.

“New Orleans is a place that defies simple racial labels,” he said. “It’s a whole different universe when it comes to understanding race.”