Henry Louis Gates Jr., best known for supporting people and celebrities revealing ancestral connections in the long-running PBS series Finding Your Roots, has made headlines again with a revelation of the viral family tree, including the newly elected Pope Leo XIV.
On Tuesday, Gates went to Instagram with a light-hearted post highlighting unexpected links in the Pope’s genealogy. The short reel says, “When you see that “like prayer” is related to Madonna, it’s different from “like prayer.” ”
According to Gates, Pope Leo XIV shares his relatives far from Quebec with the pop icon, creating a cynical twist given the well-documented tensions of Madonna with the Catholic Church, including three excommunications.
Louis Boucher de Grandfather, also a ancestor of Quebecoa, connects the Pope with Canadian singer Justin Bieber, creating a distant cousin for the two. Additional names for the expanded family tree include former US Secretary of State and First Lady Hillary Clinton, and former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau actress Angelina Jolie.
Although the findings were presented online with humor, Gates’s work continues to highlight unexpected ways in which ancestors can link numbers beyond faith, politics and entertainment.
