The Unserious “House of Luce”

"I am convinced that the pope simply does not care about truth one way or another. Like many churchmen, he treats doctrine as a means to mostly political, social ends."

From Crisis

By Darrick Taylor, PhD

I expect heresy and moral scandal to blight the Church from time to time. What distresses me more is the utter lack of seriousness, the lack of appreciation for the awesome responsibility which Church leaders bear.

I assume, charitably, that readers of Crisis are not terminally online, or not as online as I am at least. Most are probably only dimly aware of a controversy that broke out on social media last week when the Vatican released its official “mascot” for the 2025 Year of Jubilee, an anime-inspired character named “Luce.” “Luce” is a female character whose name means “light” in Italian. 

The Vatican introduced Luce at a comics convention in Italy, with the goal of engaging “the pop culture so beloved by our young people” and speaking “to younger generations about the theme of hope,” according to a Vatican official. This mascot was introduced the day before the feast of Blessed Chiara Badano, whose nickname was “Luce,” and might also be intended to invoke her. You can see what it looks like here.

Reactions to this “mascot” were swift and divergent. Some love it and see it as cute, especially younger Catholic women; others found it kitschy and lowbrow, unsuitable for the grand artistic traditions of Catholicism. For some, it appears demonic in inspiration, while a few saw it as a sort of grooming attempt to lure young Catholics. Many whom I respect felt it was merely harmless and all the fuss overblown. 

As for myself, this is the kind of controversy which I feel deep in my bones is a waste of spirit, and I would rather not even address it. I would rather be writing about the flourishing of the TLM, the successes of Eastern Catholics, and the great hope I find in the younger generation of priests.

And yet I am sympathetic with all these responses to it to a degree, since there is a grain of truth in them all. Whatever else can be said, “Luce” is kind of cute. And as someone on X pointed out, if it had been made for (an orthodox) Catholic children’s book, there would be no problem. But as religious or sacred art, I find it infantilizing and repugnant. 

I am not sure if it was meant as an attempt to groom young Catholics, but the company that produced the symbol is, sadly if predictably, a supporter of LGBTQ+ causes. It pales by comparison with the scandals perpetuated by this pontificate (McCarrick, Rupnik, Grassi, Zanchetta, Amoris Laetitia, the Abu Dhabi statement, and too many others), and much of what this contretemps reveals about the current state of the Vatican we learned long ago.

Nevertheless, symbols matter. As artist Hilary White has pointed out, the Western Church has forgotten what the East still understands: that images can be true and false, not merely aesthetic objects. In this sense, “Luce” fits a pattern both of this pontificate and also the post-Vatican II Church as a whole. 
The treacly, sentimental Catholic art of the 19th century reflected an increasing infantilization of the laity by an increasingly clericalist hierarchy, but post-Vatican II art shows this infantilization infecting the priesthood along with it. And that is what “affair Luce” reveals—how deeply unserious and juvenile most Church leaders are today. To judge from their artistic preferences, the Church appears to be run by and for old homosexuals and menopausal women longing to relive the delusions of their youth and implicate the rest of the Church in those delusions.

This fall, I had occasion to read a poem to my humanities classes that came to mind as I gazed upon the glass-like eyes of “Luce.” Philip Larkin’s poem “Church Going” once had a profound effect on my life as a young man. It is not exactly the kind of poem you would think could inspire a religious person, for Larkin was an atheist who did not believe in any kind of salvation. In the poem, he describes visiting an old church (presumably an Anglican church, as Larkin was English) and wondering what would happen to it when Christianity collapsed completely. 

As the poem begins, it appears to be another rant by a smug village atheist, sneering at believers. But the poem hints at something else, and it takes a surprising turn later on. The narrator admits that he stops by this church often and says that “though I’ve no idea / What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth, / It pleases me to stand in silence here.” The poem ends with a stanza that still burns in my memory:

A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognised, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.

“A serious house on serious earth.” One could not devise a better description of Holy Mother Church, for she is built on the most serious earth there is, that of Calvary. Though Larkin could not believe, he could still sense there was something in that dusty old church building worthy of respect. That is always how I have thought of the Church, as a bulwark of seriousness in a world of triviality and meaninglessness.

It might sound misplaced, but it is this that bothers me most about the current leadership in the Church. I expect heresy and moral scandal to blight the Church from time to time. The pages of its history are filled with both. What distresses me more is the utter lack of seriousness, the lack of appreciation for the awesome responsibility which they bear. And no one embodies this more than Pope Francis. 

I know there are many Catholics who believe Francis to be a heretic, and it can be argued that he has espoused heretical ideas. But even if this is true, I cannot believe he is one because a heretic has firm beliefs that contradict divine Revelation on some point or another. On the contrary, given his toying with the most sacred doctrines and his insouciance about contradicting himself, I am convinced that the pope simply does not care about truth one way or another. Like many churchmen, he treats doctrine as a means to mostly political, social ends. 

This is why Francis has so little in common with the great heretics in the history of the Church, such as Arius or Luther. Even though they were wrong about key questions of salvation and they defied the Church, they cared deeply about what is true and so were worthy of respect as well as condemnation. The same cannot be said for the leading lights of the current pontificate, which is what the “Luce” controversy makes painfully clear.