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Pope Leo is a modern-age Pope. First off, he’s a Chicago native, making him the first pope born in the United States, bringing a Midwestern English to global papal addresses. His real name? Francis? Benedict? Nay, it’s Bob. Oh, and now, while he wears the vestments as expected of a Pope, he’s also got a thing for Nike sneakers. And no, before you ask, this isn’t some AI-generated image of him designed to fool us, as with the viral images of Pope Francis in a puffer back in 2023.

A viral image of Pope Leo XIV sporting a pair of Nike kicks with his vestments comes from the trailer for a soon-to-be-released documentary, Leone a Roma, chronicling his life in Rome before he was named the head of the church. In short, it’s not the sort of thing you’d expect a sneakerhead to tune into, but suddenly, it absolutely should be.

In the Vatican-produced trailer Leo can be seen wearing his liturgical robes, but on his feet he sports a pair of white Nikes with eye-catching black Swooshes. But these aren’t just any Nikes. The shoes, which you can see underneath the pontiff’s vestments 50 seconds into the trailer, are a now-discontinued pair of sneakers circa 1970, which we can’t even get our hands on anymore. What a papal flex.

Nike’s Franchise Low Plus is a ankle-padded shoe that was sold in the ’70s and ’80s and was briefly re-released in 2008. We’ve managed to find an all-cream pair of the kicks on eBay, but otherwise they’re pretty much non-existent. It’s a unique tennis shoe, and we reckon Leo snagged his when the style got its re-release 40 years after it was first around.

It sort of makes perfect sense that Pope Leo is a Nike guy. He grew up in the Jordan-era of the Chicago Bulls, when Michael Jordan was flexing his own Nike Air Jordan kicks. Meanwhile, according to the religious news agency Rome Reports, the Pope rejected the first pair of papal shoes made for him by longtime Vatican shoemaker Adriano Stefanelli.

Now, with the Pope’s unexpected endorsement, and social media sneakerheads collectively losing their minds, can we expect Nike to be scrambling in the lab to get a 2026 re-release of the Franchise Low Plus? We’re praying for it.