By a stroke of luck, Marc Leboucher, a publisher at Salvator, had lunch at a table next to that of Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican's Santa Marta residence on Friday, May 9. While chatting with the Frenchman, the new pope asked him to look into his French origins. Robert Francis Prevost was born on September 14, 1955, in Chicago, United States, into a family of French, Italian, and Spanish descent.
“I think the Holy Spirit had a hand in this!” Marc Leboucher comments.
Currently in Rome with a team from Salvator to publish a book in French on the new Pope Leo XIV, he managed to greet the pope the day after his election. A long-time friend of Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, Leboucher was invited to lunch at Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican residence where all the cardinal electors were staying during the conclave.
“I found myself the only lay person in the midst of an assembly of cardinals,” says the publisher. He sat down at a table where cardinals from Madagascar, India, and Italy were having lunch. On the menu that day: raw vegetables, pasta, spinach, and fish, "because it's Friday.”
A chance encounter with the new pope
After about 15 minutes, the Frenchman heard applause coming from the room. It was Pope Leo XIV, who had just entered the cafeteria, which is where Pope Francis usually ate.
“He approached us simply and went around a few tables,” said the Frenchman, struck by the elegance of the new pontiff, who reminded him of Paul VI.
Cardinal Barbarin then introduced his friend to the new pope. Upon hearing that he was French, Leo XIV said to Leboucher, “You'll be able to tell me about my grandfather's origins!” At the time, the publisher didn't have a precise answer. When Leboucher admitted his ignorance, “‘You'll find out!’ he told me, amused.”
In a few moments, Marc Leboucher told him that he was already writing a book about the new pope. In return, he received a broad smile.
“I’m quite touched by the fact that he is attentive to his roots,” says Leboucher, who highlights the new pope's multicultural origins. “Like Jorge Mario Bergoglio, but perhaps even more so, Robert Francis Prevost has roots in Italy, France, America... He reflects our world."
Roots from around the world
In his official cardinal’s biography on the Vatican’s website — which was no longer available on the afternoon of May 9 — the Vatican detailed that both of his parents had European origins.
According to numerous reports, including one by Forbes, his mother was of Spanish, Louisiana Creole, and Haitian descent. “Her parents were of mixed race and descended from Black slaves in Louisiana, making Leo XIV the first pope with African ancestry since the 5th century,” observed French daily La Croix.
Leo XIV's father, Louis Marius Prevost, was born to an Italian father and a French mother. The pope's paternal grandmother was a Norman woman born in Le Havre in 1894, according to the specialist website geneanet.
Suzanne Fontaine, as she was known, probably immigrated to the United States in 1915 on the ship “La Touraine.” She died in 1979. Her grandson, the future 267th pope, was 24 at the time.
