By Sym Posey and Don Rhodes II | The Birmingham Times

“Shocked and excited.” “A powerful moment.” “Overwhelming.” “A pope for the people.”

Those were sentiments from a few Black Catholics in the Birmingham-area after Pope Leo XIV became the first North American and first person of Haitian and African American descent to be elected to lead the global Catholic community.

“I was shocked and excited when I heard that the pope was American,” said Brent Patterson, who has been a member of Our Lady of Fátima Catholic Church in Birmingham’s historic Titusville neighborhood for the past 14 years. “Shocked that in over 2,000 years of the church’s existence, no pope has been American. … Excited that he is American like me and potentially has Black, Creole, and Spanish [ancestry].”