In one of those headlines that feels plucked straight from a fever dream - or at least a clickbait conspiracy subreddit, Pope Leo XIV, the newly elected head of the Catholic Church, has been revealed to be… distantly related to Madonna and Justin Bieber.

According to a deep genealogical dive surfaced by The New York Times and picked up by Billboard, Pope Leo XIV’s ancestry leads directly back to the same French-Canadian bloodline that birthed not just the Queen of Pop and Canada’s original bad boy, but also a surprisingly long list of other famous names. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Angelina Jolie, Jack Kerouac, and even Hillary Clinton all appear somewhere on this extended family tree.

The common link? A man named Louis Boucher de Grandpré, who lived in 17th-century Trois-Rivières, Quebec, a French colonial settlement and, apparently, future pop cultural dynasty.

Before jumping to visions of a Boucher family reunion featuring the Pope and pop royalty sharing a holiday meal, it’s worth clarifying what this discovery actually means. Pope Leo XIV is not texting Madonna to collaborate on a remix of “Like a Prayer.” The connections are distant, likely eighth or ninth cousins, several generations apart. Still, the genealogical link is real, and it reveals something far more compelling than the surface-level “celebrity pope” headline might suggest.

Genealogists have long known that descendants of early French-Canadian settlers are disproportionately represented in North American pop culture, politics, and public life. Since those early communities were small, insular, and incredibly well-documented, thanks to the Catholic Church’s meticulous record-keeping. Add in a few centuries of migration, and suddenly you’ve got a whole continent with distant cousins who don’t even know they’re related.

But the irony here is too rich to ignore: the Vatican spent years condemning Madonna’s work, especially the Like a Prayer era, which led to official statements of outrage and bans, as of today, Madonna has been excommunicated from the Catholic Church three times, being arguably the most culturally antagonistic figure the modern Church has ever faced.

Justin Bieber, meanwhile, grew up in a devout Christian household and has spoken openly about faith, redemption, and his own spiritual journey. That journey now includes being distantly linked to the actual Pope.

And then there’s the Pope himself. Leo XIV, elected after the passing of Pope Francis isn’t exactly known for pop cultural flair. So far, the Vatican has offered no comment on the discovery, and neither has the Holy Father. One assumes he’s not poring over his Ancestry.com results in between Mass and international diplomacy.

But the internet has done what it does best: turned a nuanced genealogical study into memes, fanfiction-level speculation, and a lot of Reddit debates. One top comment summed it up best: “If you go back far enough, everyone is related to everyone.”

Which is, in some ways, the most interesting takeaway here. Because yes, it’s bizarre and hilarious that the Pope and Madonna share a common ancestor. But it’s also a reminder that our idea of separation, between sacred and secular, between fame and faith, is often thinner than we like to admit. That bloodlines can defy borders. That a man in Vatican robes and a woman in a cone bra might have more in common than any of us expected.