Pope Creole I

Pope Leo has Louisiana Creole ancestry.

This is truly extraordinary, Pope Leo XIV has a maternal grandfather born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in 1864, with a Spanish sounding surname Martinez, but that might be a localized Czech name. There’s already an extensive Wikipedia entry on his family, some of whom were undeniably black.

Not just a thumb in eyes of white nationalists, more like a velociraptor claw.

My family arrived as refugees from the Holy Roman empire in 1752, fleeing Catholic persecution. I don’t have a copy of our voluminous genealogy any more, and the name Palatine is badly overloaded, but as I recall it was Palatine Zweibrücken.

I never thought much about the Catholic Church, until I met Giles Raymond Demourot eight years ago. Since then I have had to pay a bit of attention to Understanding Vatican Diplomacy. I was delighted once I understood the implications of our new Pope’s name and got a look at Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum.

We might have a drunken juicer of a SecDef violating the Establishment Clause, but I don’t think His Holiness is going to be blessing some goon squad wearing the crusader’s cross any time soon.

I caught a funny shot of my desk pet while drafting this.

That sign in the video on the left? It’s Indigo Girls, Shame On You :-)

Coda:

These turned up after the post was finished. It’s not theoretical, Pope Leo XIV is putting the Vatican’s money where his principles say it should be, and this move with the mayor of Rome … that speaks volumes.