Study claims that Pope Leo XIV is ninth cousin of pop star Madonna.
Pope Leo XIV, born Robert Francis Prevost, shares a common ancestor with celebrities Madonna, Justin Bieber and Angelina Jolie, according to a report in The New York Times.
Titled Five Key Discoveries in the Family Tree of Pope Leo XIV, the article revealed the findings of expert genealogists who identified more than 100 ancestors of the US-born pontiff going back 500 years.
The ancestry of the newly elected pope has been traced across more than 15 generations and four continents, encompassing African American, French, Spanish, Cuban and Italian roots, including five generations of Sicilian ancestors.
Introducing the “complex family tree of the first American pontiff”, which includes “Noblemen, enslaved people, freedom fighters, slaveowners”, the article traces Prevost’s ancestors as far back as 16th-century Spain.
Four of his 11th-great-grandfathers are recorded as hidalgos – belonging to the lower nobility – in the 1573 census of Isla, a village in northern Spain.
The family tree also includes multiple slaveowners and formerly enslaved people, with at least 17 of the pope’s ancestors recorded as “Black”, “mulatto” and “free person of colour”.
The study purports that Leo XIV and pop music icon Madonna are ninth cousins, various times removed.
The pope is also distantly related to a number of high-profile public figures, according to the study, including pop singer Justin Bieber, actress Angelina Jolie, former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and former prime minister of Canada Justin Trudeau – all of whom have a Canadian ancestor in common: Louis Boucher de Grandpre, born in Quebec in 1590.
