Holy pop! According to a new deep dive published by The New York Times, the newly named Pope Leo XIV is related to two of pop music's biggest names: Madonna and Justin Bieber. In assembling a detailed family tree for the Chicago-born religious leader - who was elected the new head of the Catholic Church in May following the death of Pope Francis - the publication found that Leo is distantly linked to the two singers through a shared ancestor born about six generations back.

Through a distant maternal ancestor, who was born in the 1590s, Pope Leo is ninth cousins, various times removed, with some well-known figures, including Pierre and Justin Trudeau, Hillary Clinton, Angelina Jolie, Justin Bieber, Jack Kerouac and Madonna.

Pope Leo XIV is ending one of the changes instituted by Pope Francis to bring about “Synodality” in the Church.

When Pope Leo XIV stepped out on the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica to greet the crowd for the first time after his May 8 election, liturgical fashion aficionados around the globe took note: Gone was the simple white cassock and silver cross favored by Pope Francis.

This chart was prepared by Henry Louis Gates Jr., American Ancestors and the Cuban Genealogy Club of Miami. It reflects the best-known research as of the time of publication. Design by Nick Sheedy.

Pope Leo XIV has appointed a new president for the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life, a bioethics think tank that Catholic conservatives criticized under Pope Francis for departing from official church teaching on issues such as contraception and euthanasia.

When the newly elected Pope Leo XIV stepped out on the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica to greet the crowd, liturgical fashion aficionados around the globe noticed a change. (AP video shot by Dario Artale,