The Vatican has a new mascot: an anime girl named Luce

The Vatican has found itself a new star — and no, it’s not the “gamer saint.” The Vatican announced the official mascot for Jubilee 2025 on Monday and it’s an anime character named Luce. While it’s been roughly a day since Luce was revealed, she’s already become unbelievably popular online — people are flocking to social media platforms like X to share memes and fanart of the little pilgrim.

Luce was designed by Simone Legno, the creator of the Tokidoki brand, for jubilee, a year-long religious period in the Catholic church that emphasizes the “forgiveness of sins.” Her basic chibi design almost looks like a Sanrio character and contains details like a yellow raincoat, mud on her boots from her journey, and a clam-shell design in her eyes that apparently represent the hope that’s born in the heart of every pilgrim. In Italian, her name means “light” and she was designed to reflect pop culture and appeal to the younger generation, the official jubilee website translated by Polygon said.

The kawaii character comes at a contentious time for the Catholic church. Ten years ago, the Vatican created a commission on clerical sexual abuse, and the group published its first report on Tuesday. Victims advocates criticized the commission’s findings for lacking independent verification and being “toothless,” according to a story from the New York Times. Many victims of clergy abuse were children, so introducing a mascot aimed at young people highlights the dissonance between the Vatican’s new mascot and the clergy’s failure to protect kids.

Despite other news, it seems like the Pope and other Vatican officials wanted to hop on the anime hype train — and it looks like it worked on some level. People online are sharing anime-inspired fanart of Luce and memes riffing off the fact that Catholics get an anime girl now. Some of the art depicts Luce in a more detailed style, but others make jokes about her hanging out with Jesus. Either way, there are loads of them, so scroll on to see them all.

The Vatican releasing an official anime character wasn’t on my 2024 bingo card, but it makes sense since the Vatican will be holding its 2025 expo in Osaka, Japan.