The Catholic Church Has a New Mascot — Meet Anime-Inspired Luce
The hate online is already apparent.
Luce is making a splash in her raincoat and boots with the extremely online. The Catholic Church recently announced her as their mascot for the upcoming 2025 Jubilee Year, the subject of which is hope, forgiveness, and holy pilgrimages. Luce was designed by Simone Legno, the Italian pop artist behind the tokidoki brand.
Her design is a homage to quite a bit of that and more Catholic iconography. She’s designed to be a pilgrim, wearing a rain jacket, muddy boots, and carrying a staff to more easily traverse what could be seen as a troubled landscape. Luce’s blue hair could symbolize the Virgin Mary’s blue hair covering. At the same time, the scallop shells in her eyes are a pretty clear reference to the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, with the shell representing the way to the Cathedral.
Although Luce’s main purpose is to keep the youth of the Catholic faith interested, and possibly bring in more young followers, the church had to know there would be a lot of commentary online. The anime community is large and extremely online and traditionally, pretty gatekeepy. However, so far, what I’ve seen (well, been told) that’s negative is coming from inside the house.
