Passing and the Papacy

When Pope Leo XIV stepped onto the balcony of St. Peter’s, the world saw a man of God. What it didn’t see were the erased census lines, the Creole grandmother marked “Black” in New Orleans and “white” in Chicago. His papacy is historic—but so is the silence beneath it. This is the story of racial passing, survival by erasure, and a descendant who chose to speak where his ancestors could not.