By all logic, Pope Leo XIV, born Robert Francis Prevost, could have been named… Robert Francis Riggitano. Except that his grandfather Salvatore, born Sicilian and died Italian, committed a slight conjugal indiscretion with a certain Suzanne. A woman from Le Havre. It was the team at the highly reputable Geneanet website, the European leader in genealogy, that uncovered this Sicilian-Norman tale worthy of a Maupassant short story.

Ah, good old genealogy! The study of civil registries, family papers, and old notarial ledgers remains, as you shall see, highly competitive compared to DNA testing! Even when it concerns a prominent prelate. In plain sight. The foremost among them: the Pope himself: Leo XIV. It is the team and members of the French website Geneanet, the leader of online genealogy in Europe, who since May 2025 have “confessed” the origin of Leo XIV’s French surname: Prevost, given names Robert Francis, passed down by his American father Louis Marius.

For there is a “glitch” in the Holy Father’s family history: the paternal grandfather, born on June 24, 1876, in Milazzo, Sicily, was indeed named Salvatore Riggitano. Therefore, logically speaking, our Sovereign Pontiff should bear the very same Italian surname, Riggitano. A patronymic meaning “hailing from Reggio Calabria.” Reggio being the city facing the Strait of Messina, and the province of the same name in Sicily from which Salvatore originated.

So whence comes the name “Prevost”? Geneanet’s answer: from an adultery committed by grandfather Salvatore: “The Pope’s family history is particularly romantic, as attested by the newspapers of the time. Salvatore Riggitano was already married when he met the Pope’s grandmother, Suzanne Fontaine, a young Frenchwoman born in Le Havre in 1894. The adultery was brought to light and reported in the press. Suzanne was then forced to give birth far from home in a Catholic institution for unmarried young women. Two sons were born of their liaison.”

The Grandfather’s Skill in Concealing the Truth

Very well, but why the name Prevost? Well, when Leo XIV’s grandmother, Suzanne Fontaine, registered the birth of her first child, she had to name the father without revealing his true identity. She provided what was at hand: her mother’s maiden name: Jeanne Eugénie Prevost. And thus, the Pope’s father, son of a Sicilian, was 100% “Frenchified.”

What is amusing in this affair is grandfather Salvatore’s skill in concealing the truth. He, a professor of Romance languages who “spoke Italian and French perfectly,” could indeed, as Geneanet notes, play “both sides.” The fact remains that he was Italian and remained so until his death.

Thus, the Pope is “Prevost” by the deeds of his grandmother Suzanne, the civil registry of his great-grandmother, and Salvatore’s shell game. The department of Seine-Maritime, moreover, is, after the capital, the one that still counts the most “Prévosts.”

The French Roots of Pope Leo XIV

On the side of his paternal grandmother Suzanne Fontaine, the Pope is thoroughly Norman. “The name,” Geneanet emphasizes, “originates from the Pays de Caux as early as the 17th century, with a few branches stretching to the Indre, around Gargilesse-Dampierre, Cuzion, Orsennes, or Badecon-le-Pin, where farmers and winemakers succeeded one another.”

And on his mother’s side, Robert Francis Prevost also has French roots, Geneanet notes, notably several branches “settled in Louisiana. His grandfather Joseph Martinez, born in New Orleans, descends from several families with French surnames. Among them, Pierre Guesnon, born in Coutances, in the Manche, and Marie Marguerite Coquelin, born in Saint-Servant in Ille-et-Vilaine in the 17th century. Another branch leads to Béarn, around Monein and Pardies, before reaching Guadeloupe and then Louisiana. Further south, the family tree reveals families established for several centuries around Marseille, Salon, Lançon, and Allauch, but also in the Var, in Monaco, and in Menton.”

A Pope Whose Authority and Independence of Mind Now Command the Esteem of Many

Decidedly, this highly reserved Pope, born an American in Chicago but naturalized Peruvian, is endowed with a decidedly cosmopolitan stature, as indeed befits his universal ministry. Which perhaps also explains his devotion to Saint Augustine, the immense theologian of the 5th century AD, who was quite the rake in his youth in Carthage and lived for fourteen years with the mother of his son Adeodatus without ever marrying her, until he dismissed her under pressure from his own mother. Only to remarry a very wealthy patrician, once again selected by his mother.

Which did not prevent him from writing several works on marriage, fidelity, desire, and concupiscence that remain great classics of the Catholic Church.

May the Church, its cardinals, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, and all the theologians the Curia counts among its ranks, slightly revise its dogmas regarding the sacred bonds of marriage. Without grandfather Salvatore’s indiscretion, we would have missed out on a Pope whose authority and independence of mind now command the esteem of many. Food for thought, too, for the fanatical identitarians of pure jus sanguinis.

It remains to be seen whether the Pope will add a little detour to Le Havre during his stay in France to visit the graves of his ancestors…