Archbishop James Checchio and New Orleans Saints owner Gayle Benson flew back from Rome with a very New Orleans kind of hope: that the pope with local roots might one day come home for a visit. After a roughly 35-minute private audience with Pope Leo XIV on March 23, Checchio told local reporters that the pontiff has said he would like to visit the Crescent City someday, even as the Vatican continues to insist there is no U.S. trip on the books for 2026.
Checchio said he used the meeting to remind the pope of his family’s long connection to New Orleans. That personal pitch has already stirred plenty of chatter back home, even if it does not come with a plane ticket attached.
The new archbishop led the New Orleans delegation into the pope’s private library, where the group spent about half an hour talking about the cathedral and the city’s Catholic community. Benson presented the pope with a Saints jersey, according to New Orleans Saints. For those catching up on the change in church leadership, Checchio became archbishop in February.
Checchio also reminded the pope that his mother’s family once lived and worshipped in New Orleans, and that the future pontiff “remembers his family in Chicago often talking about New Orleans,” as reported by NOLA.com. During the audience, the archbishop said, the pope agreed to let the archdiocese name the cathedral rectory in his honor, a symbolic gesture that Checchio described as having “moved the Holy Father deeply.”
The emotional angle here is not just sentimentality. Genealogical research that surfaced after the conclave traced Pope Leo XIV’s maternal line to New Orleans’ Seventh Ward and identified ancestors who once described themselves as Creoles of color, work detailed by The New York Times. Those ties made the historic cathedral, along with the city’s Black Catholic story, a natural centerpiece of the delegation’s pitch.
Rectory Rechristened, Cathedral Headed For Work
Checchio told reporters the pope gave his blessing to rechristen the St. Louis Cathedral rectory as the Pope Leo XIV Center for Evangelization. Benson, for her part, briefed the pontiff on a multiyear restoration of the cathedral. The renovation, which NOLA.com reported carries an estimated $45 million price tag and is scheduled to start this summer, was a key part of the case for putting New Orleans on any future papal itinerary.
The idea is simple enough: if the pope with New Orleans roots is ever going to make a U.S. stop, the local church hopes a newly restored, spiritually rebranded cathedral will be ready for him.
Not This Year, But A Seed Is Planted
For all the excitement, the Vatican has been clear that people should not start booking hotel rooms just yet. A Vatican spokesman told reporters that “no trip to the U.S. is expected in 2026,” according to The Washington Post. Any papal homecoming to New Orleans, if it ever happens, would be further down the road.
Local leaders are treating the March audience less as a scheduling breakthrough and more as the first real opening, a chance to plant the idea of a New Orleans visit in the pope’s mind while underlining his personal and historical links to the city.
Local Reaction
On the ground in New Orleans, many residents are embracing the connection as a point of civic pride. Some Black Catholic leaders say the pope feels like “a cousin,” in the words reported by Religion News Service. That family-style framing has quickly become part of the city’s growing lore around the new pontiff.
For parish fundraisers and tourism officials, the Rome visit offers a ready-made narrative to pair with the cathedral restoration, even if an actual papal motorcade through Jackson Square is nowhere near guaranteed. The trip gave New Orleans a fresh and very personal link to the pope’s family story, along with a concrete hook for rallying support around the restoration project.
Whether that connection ever turns into a stop on a future papal tour will depend on Vatican timing and the priorities of a pope who has repeatedly signaled he wants to balance global travel with careful political considerations. For now, New Orleans has a blessed endorsement for its rectory renaming, a high-profile restoration to sell and a tantalizing “maybe someday” from the city’s most famous long-distance cousin.
