Henry Louis Gates Jr., best known for helping people and celebrities uncover ancestral connections on his long-running PBS series “Finding Your Roots,” has made headlines again with a viral family tree revelation involving the newly elected Pope Leo XIV.
On Tuesday, Gates took to Instagram with a lighthearted post highlighting some unexpected links in the pontiff’s genealogy. The short reel read: “‘Like A Prayer’ hits different when you find out the Pope is related to Madonna.”
According to Gates, Pope Leo XIV shares a distant relative from Quebec with the pop icon, creating an ironic twist given Madonna’s well-documented tensions with the Catholic Church, including having been excommunicated three times.
The same Quebecois ancestor, Louis Boucher de Grandpre, also connects the pope to Canadian singer Justin Bieber, making the two distant cousins. Additional names on the extended family tree include actress Angelina Jolie, former U.S. Secretary of State and First Lady Hillary Clinton, and former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
While the findings were presented with humor online, Gates’ research continues to highlight the unexpected ways that ancestry can connect figures across faith, politics and entertainment.
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