The Problem(s) with Luce
Because a "cute little doll" is more than just a cute little doll.
After writing my article “The Age of Immaturity” (which I published last week, and can be found here), I resolved to lay the topic to rest. However, I find myself in need of alluding to the subject yet again, as I cannot write on this topic without at least making a reference to it. My sincere apologies to my readers if the subject is growing tiresome. - M.A.
Usually, I would be wary of quoting myself, but I will allow myself the abuse this once. In my article “The Age of Immaturity”, which I published here on Wednesday but authored quite some time ago, I wrote, “Even the Church’s clergy hasten to dispose of the respect due to them.” I was referring to how members of the clergy will often reject signs of respect bestowed on them by the faithful (such as bishops refusing to have their rings kissed). Since then, the statement has been proven true in another way. The Vatican has indeed hastened to dispose of the respect many held for the Church in another… interesting pursuit.
On October 28th, the Vatican announced the official ‘mascot’ (yes, you read that right) for the 2025 Jubilee Year. The character is an anime, blue-haired (you read that right, too) doll named “Luce.” According to LifeSiteNews, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, who unveiled the mascot to the world, “emphasized that the mascot was created to draw more young people into the Church through ‘pop culture.’” He also said that “the mascot underscores the Church’s will ‘to live even within the pop culture so beloved by our youth.’”
As you might expect, there are a few things I find wrong, both with this approach by the Vatican, and with the character itself.
Like Dr. Kwasniewski, when I first started to see the news about “Luce,” I thought this was a joke and had to look for further confirmation. My main question is… Why a mascot? Why do we — why does the Church — need something like this? Are we some kind of High School sports team? Or a marketing corporation?
But if we were to grant, for argument’s sake, that a mascot was needed, why one like this? “To draw more young people to the Church” they say. But why do we have to draw them in “through pop culture”? This is the Catholic Church. Why not seek to draw them in with Catholicism itself? There are dozens of child and youth saints who led admirable lives and are wonderful examples of virtue who could have been chosen as an example for the young people of today. Think of St. Agnes, or St. Maria Goretti (as examples of purity), or the great St. Dominic Savio. Why choose instead a soulless, lifeless character created by an unobjectionable “artist”?
Art-wise, Luce is only another example of the invaluable “artwork” we see promoted throughout the Catholic Church today. Materialistic. Shallow. Childish. Overall, there is nothing about her that makes one think about the Faith. Even if the Vatican provided a guide for the meaning of certain elements of the character, can anyone earnestly opine that a common person will recognize Catholic artwork by just looking at Luce? Or will have any pious thoughts inspired by her?
But what if Luce is childish? After all, the mascot is intended for the youth. An answer to this objection can be found simply by looking back at Church history over the past fifty years. Changes were introduced in the Church in the 1960s to “draw people in.” These changes came in the form of things that were popular with the youth in those days. And these reforms failed. They failed so miserably, in fact, that we are still suffering the effects of them now. The sale of parish churches has become commonplace now, and a down-sizing of Catholic dioceses in the U.S. seems to happen every couple of months.
If there is a lesson to be learned from what has occurred in the Church during the past sixty years, it is that Catholicism mixed with worldliness results in mediocrity. That is, an unsatisfactory product that pleases neither one nor the other. And it is here that another lesson is to be learned: people will take the world or the Church, but very few will be content with a mix of both. One thing clear to us from the past six decades is that those who want the world will stay with the world, while those who have a true intention to be and remain Catholic will be dissatisfied with anything other than the pure, undiluted Faith.
To summarize, I believe that Luce is another product of a shallow, post-Vatican II Catholicism, and will share the same fate.
As people started objecting to Luce after her release, I saw many Catholics objecting against them by making statements like, “It’s just a harmless character!” In a sense, I believe Luce is harmless because I don’t expect that she will have any more effect on the faithful — whether young or old — than any of the other innovations the Vatican has come out within the past sixty years. But she is harmful in one respect: she is debasing the Catholic Church.
Luce is unfit for something as sacred as the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. It does not matter how “cute” she might be, or how attractive those with a taste for anime might find her. Using a childish mascot like this for a Jubilee Year is not only ridiculous, debasing, and, yes, immature, but makes no sense. A drawing that requires a guide to give it meaning makes no sense. Luce makes no sense unless you put on your glasses and take the time to read through the kiddie diagram provided with her. In a way, Luce is the epitome of the Church after Vatican II — things that are apparently and supposedly simple but cannot be understood unless you have a certain knowledge of them and take the time to dissect them.
In conclusion, while few people — if any — could have rightly guessed at an anime doll as the Vatican’s next venture into “sacred art,” this is only the result of years of having lost the sense of the sacred. We no longer have a taste for Catholicism, so we turn to foolish trinkets that charm our worldly fancy. And it is because we have lost all sense of what is Good and True and Beautiful that we need the help of the world to make the Faith palatable to us. This must not be. Yet only when we reclaim this sense will we realize that Luce — like all the shallow, childish art of the past sixty years — is unfitting for God and has no place in the Church.
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There are so many problems with Luce on so many levels. But, if everything is about dumbing down the Church and minimizing God, this is doing its job. Cutesy anime Is not going to attract any more Catholics to the Church than Vatican II did. Instead, it is just going to alienate more Catholics.
I wonder if Luce is not just childish, but a veiled Trojan Horse. I say this because...