Vatican’s anime-style mascot Luce goes viral on internet with Catholic memes, fan art

 

The Vatican on Oct. 28, 2024, unveiled the official mascot for the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year: “Luce,” which is Italian for “light.” / Credit: Simone Legno/Toki Doki/Vatican Media

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 3, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).

The Vatican introduced an anime-style mascot named Luce to represent Catholic pilgrims in the 2025 Jubilee year on Monday, Oct. 28 — and within a week, the character has already become a viral internet sensation.

In less than seven days, hundreds of memes and fan art renditions of Luce (pronounced Lu — Chay) popped up on social media websites, such as Facebook, X, Reddit, and Tiktok and have been circulating the platforms.

The character has become particularly popular with Catholic meme accounts and groups, but also has a presence in non-Catholic spaces, such as with amateur anime artists, protestant meme accounts, and some secular and political meme accounts. It has also inspired Halloween costumes and the creation of a cryptocurrency called Luce Token, which has a market capitalization that has surpassed $50 million.

Luce’s symbolism

Luce, which is Italian for “light,” is a blue-haired mascot who wears a rosary around her neck and a yellow raincoat that is meant to symbolize journeying through life’s storms and reflect the color of the Vatican flag. She wears green muddy boots that represent a long and difficult journey and carries a staff meant to symbolize the pilgrimage toward eternity.

The Vatican’s Dicastery for Evangelization commissioned the creation of the character, which was designed by Italian artist Simone Legno, who owns the company tokidoki, which creates products with Japanese-inspired designs. Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the Vatican’s chief organizer for the jubilee, unveiled the mascot during a news conference.

Many of the Luce-inspired memes invoke Christian messages of prayer and warding of the devil. One popular meme, which parodies a famous scene from The Shining shows Luce use her staff to break a hole into a wooden door and stick her face through the hole as the devil cowers in the corner. Some others depict Luce kneeling in prayer.

Several Luce memes spreading around the internet also invoke pro-life messages, such as one that depicts Luce saving a baby from a Planned Parenthood abortion facility. Some memes have put Luce side-by-side with Crusaders.

Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, a Catholic priest with a large social media following, has embraced the mascot, creating threads on X with more than 70 of his favorite fan art renditions of Luce. Some of the amateur artists are Catholic, but dozens of amateur anime artists who normally produce secular art have also jumped on the trend.

“I like Luce, the mascot for the holy year 2025,” Schneider said on X. “The images seem like a good Christian adaptation of modern culture or inculturation.”

Catholic Answers’ seal of approval?

Thomas Graf, the social media manager for Catholic Answers, wrote in an article on Thursday that he worried at first that the character would be a failed attempt to “try to make Church cool and relevant.” However, he notes it was ultimately embraced by some Catholics within all age groups.

“Luce is undeniably adorable,” Graf wrote. “Maybe you disagree, but I have to hand it to the creators: they nailed the look of childlike faith and innocence. And the pilgrimage symbols embedded in her character — muddy boots, Camino de Santiago shells in her eyes, pilgrim’s cross, and World Mission rosary — are subtle. Nothing evokes the overbearing ‘Jesus is COOL, kids!!’ lunkheadedness of, say, VBS mascots.”

Christians who are not Catholic have also jumped on the Luce thread to create their own versions of the character.

One post in the Anglicanism subreddit developed an Anglican version of Luce with symbolism that represents their own denomination. Lutherans on Facebook and X have done the same, making Lutheran versions of Luce and claiming she converted — prompting strong responses from Catholics reclaiming the character. Some Orthodox Christians have made similar posts.

“Been seeing a ton of ‘I’m not Catholic, but Luce is so cute’ posts — THIS IS HOW WE WIN,” one Twitter user said.

Not all Catholics are fans

In spite of the Luce success on social media, not all Catholics are fans of the character.

Traditionalist Catholic theologian Peter Kwasniewski wrote on X that “even if Luce is not ‘evil,’ the fact that she’s kitschy, cutesy, cringey, merchy, and childish is already offensive to the religion of the Logos.”

Kwasniewski also criticized Legno, the artist who designed the character, calling him “a moral degenerate.” Legno’s company tokidoki has promoted homosexual pride and has partnered with one company to produce sex toys.

Edward Feser, a Catholic philosopher and professor at Pasadena City College, also criticized the character on X: “Infantilizing the young with a dumbed down version of Catholicism does them a disservice.”

Some traditionalist-minded Catholics, such as The Daily Wire host Michael Knowles, have been supportive of Luce.

“I attend the Traditional Latin Mass,” Knowles wrote on X. “I wear bowties. I read old books. I smoke cigars. I’m married with three kids under four. I’m what they call a ‘trad.’ And I stan [am a fan of] Luce.”

The Vatican intends to keep moving forward with the mascot. Luce made an appearance at the Lucca Comics & Games convention in Tuscany, Italy this past weekend and will also appear at the Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan next year.


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4 Comments

  1. Yup,made by a porn producing, lmnop “artist”.. It only gets worse in this “make a mess” papacy..
    Christ Jesus appears to be lost in this age… It’s all about cartoon and ai…

  2. “I attend the Traditional Latin Mass,’ Knowles wrote on X.’ I wear bowties. I read old books. I smoke cigars. I’m married with three kids under four. I’m what they call a trad. And I stan [am a fan of] Luce.”
    Yes, there are inscrutable anomalies in life.

  3. I have to say something re: the mascot and, most importantly, about its positive “reception” by the many faithful. The mascot is a postmodern collage. I have to explain my point drawing on example of a grandmaster of a collage, David Bowie (who has been my most beloved rock musician).

    Recently, when I did related research, I came across an article by a Roman Catholic Cardinal (I did not save the link and I forgot his name) who absolutely seriously insisted that Bowie was a Christian. As a proof, he mentioned his song ‘From Station to Station’. He read this song as a reference to the Stations of the Cross. I almost fell off my chair when I read it. ‘Station to Station’ is very rich with references indeed. They are: “white stains”, a reference to the poetic work ‘White Stains’ of Aleister Crowley (google if you do not know the name) which is about masturbation and occult, so as “the dart thrown in lovers’ eyes, so as the intoxicating “magical moment”, so as “from Kether to Malekith” that is Kabbala, Tree of Life and so on. As for ‘station to station” it is mentioned as “There are you, you drive like a demon from station to station”. I do not recognize Christ in this line, do you?

    Most importantly, no sane person would see Christ neighboring to Aleister Crowley the author of ‘Thelema’. Apparently, the Cardinal managed to see Christ between “white stains” and “Kether to Malkuth” and “The return of the Thin White Duke, making sure white stains”. I am not sure if you see what I see, a covert blasphemy achieved by that juxtaposition; to my mind it hit the very core of Christian mysticism. Well done, Cardinal! With your wishful thinking you “swallowed”, together with a supposed reference to the Stations of the Cross, Satanic poetry, a ritual murder of lovers, ritual masturbation and all the occult hardcore crap. “Stations of the Cross” which existed only in your mind, “sanctified” for you all that.

    You may wonder how the above is connected with Luce. I am simply illustrating the principle of how evil works in the modern world: scatter a bit of inferno/revolting stuff, add some “acceptable things” like rosary or a reference to it, make it appealing via playing on some instincts and they will accept it.

    Cute Luce the mascot is produced by the same company which produced the sex-toys and some “pride” stuff is just like that ‘Station to Station’ – although far less brilliant. Via accepting the collage “mascot – sex-toys – gay pride” the Church accepted it all, just as it accepted the violation of God in Rupnik’s “theological threesomes”. Via accepting it, the Church became a part of that diabolical collage as well. The Church in effect blessed it all – this is precisely why the world needs the Church.

    The story boils down to a very boring maximum: holiness is being a whole person; a whole person does not split. Although it may be tempting, I cannot ecstatically shout with Bowie “The return of the Thin White Duke, making sure white stains” and then paint icons because this stuff will pollute me. Likewise, the mascot whose author made sex-toys as well being chosen by the Church because it “appeals to young” is… do I really need to say anything? Just repeat:

    “the Church chose the mascot whose author made sex-toys because it “appeals to young”
    “the Church chose the mascot whose author made sex-toys because it “appeals to young”.
    “the Church chose the mascot whose author made sex-toys because it “appeals to young”.

    Does it sink in? Do you see a very oblique line of pedophilia in the Church “confirmed” by the anime mascot tainted by sexual toys? It is all about a collage. You make a collage, via accepting.

  4. “the official mascot for the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year:”

    A mascot.
    A *mascot*?
    Why??????????????????

    And I am so sick of “appealing to children” with cartoonish slop as art. So many Catholic books for children feature that.

    Older Catholic illustrations may be criticized for being overly sentimental, etc., but at least the people looked human and lacked weird bug-eyed faces.

    Blechhhhhhh.

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