Pope Francis Keeps Accidentally Tweeting About the New Orleans Saints — and the Team Is Loving It

The New Orleans Saints have an accidental fan in Pope Francis.

The 87-year-old pontiff is an active user on X (formerly known as Twitter), but it appears that he — or whoever is managing his account — is unfamiliar with the app's feature that adds emojis alongside certain hashtags.

One of those hashtags is #Saints, and when users on X include the tag in their post, the NFL team's Fleur-de-lis logo appears.

The problem for Pope Francis, however, is that he's not talking about the NFL team, but he continues to use the Saints hashtag.

On Nov. 5, he posted, "The #Saints⚜️ are precious pearls and are always living and relevant, because they provide a fascinating commentary on the Gospel. Their lives are an illustration of the Good News that Jesus brought to humanity."

And now, the 2-7 New Orleans Saints are having fun with the mixup. They reposted the Nov. 5 message from Pope Francis and thanked him for his prayers. "We need them," the team's account joked.

On Nov. 7, the pope wrote, "We cannot become #Saints⚜️ with a frown. We must have joyful hearts that remain open to hope."

The NFL's Saints account reposted that as well, and wrote, "Amen #Saints."

The pope, or his social media team, possibly haven't noticed that the NFL Saints' logo is showing up on his posts, or they simply don't mind the extra eyes on his motivational messaging.

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Pope Francis announced in October that his upcoming memoir, which follows his March book Life: My Story Through History, will release on Jan. 14, 2025. It was originally meant to be published after his death, but inspired by the upcoming year of Jubilee — a rarity that only occurs every 25 years — the pontiff decided to release it now.

Earlier this year, the pontiff was embroiled in a controversy after he reportedly used a homophobic slur during a private meeting. According to BBC and The Guardian, he reportedly said the derogatory term in a meeting with members of the Italian bishops’ conference in Rome on May 20 while discussing the subject of whether gay men should be welcomed into the priesthood.

In a statement to PEOPLE at the time, Director of the Holy See Press Office Matteo Bruni said the pope was "aware of" the reports and that he "never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms."

"He apologises to those who have felt offended by the use of a term, reported by others,” Bruni added.

The New Orleans Saints, meanwhile have had a slow start to this season. They're currently sitting in fourth place in the NFC South conference with just two wins, and seven losses. New Orleans' only victories came on Sept. 8 over the Carolina Panthers and Sept. 15 over the Dallas Cowboys.