New Pope Leo T-shirts honoring his New Orleans roots

NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — When local T-shirt shop Dirty Coast heard that Pope Leo XIV had family ties to New Orleans, they did what they do best and made a clever T-shirt.

Dirty Coast added some very specific features to honor the new pope.

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In true New Orleans fashion, when news breaks, Dirty Coast makes.

“After the conclave elected the new Pope Leo, a lot of people were digging up where he’s from and lot of people realized that his mother’s side were from New Orleans and had roots in town,” Price Provenzano, creative director at Dirty Coast said.

The Historic New Orleans Collection did the research and found that Pope Leo’s grandparents on his mother’s side lived in the Seventh Ward.

“We thought it would be fun for anyone interested to get a ‘if you know you know’ t-shirt about Pope Leo’s family and Creole roots,” Provenzano said.

“The t-shirt has silly nods on there. He’s holding a bowl of gumbo, we decked him out with Fleur De Lis’ and he has a second line umbrella. Then there is also a sad part of his family’s past represented on the shirt. His mother’s side of the family were part of a home demolition to make way for the Claiborne overpass, which is tragic. On the shirt there’s a nod to where his neighborhood would be and you can see there are arches resembling the Claiborne overpass,” he said.

With New Orleans being such a Catholic city this isn’t the first time that Dirty Coast made a shirt with Catholic themes. They are also selling a “Last Supper” themed shirt called, “The Last Boil.”

“I don’t think the pope has seen our shirt yet, but we’re still waiting to hear back from the pope’s people on what size he wears,” Provenzano said.

These limited-edition T-shirts are only on sale for the next two weeks. You can find them on Dirty Coast’s website.

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