The Vatican has found a new star – and no, it’s not “the player’s saint.” The Vatican announced the official mascot for Jubilee 2025 Monday and is an anime character named Luce. Although it’s only been about a day since Luce was revealed, she’s already become incredibly 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, creator of the Tokidoki brand, for the jubilee, a one-year religious period in the Catholic church that emphasizes “forgiveness of sins.” Her basic chibi design looks almost like a Sanrio character and features details such as a yellow raincoat, mud on her boots from her journey, and a shell-shaped design in her eyes, which apparently represents the hope that is born in every pilgrim’s heart . In Italian, her name means “light” and was designed to reflect pop culture and appeal to the younger generation, official site of the jubilee translated by Polygon said.

The kawaii character comes at a controversial 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 an independent and “toothless” check. according to an article in the New York Times. Many victims of clerical abuse have been children, so the introduction of a mascot aimed at young people highlights the dissonance between the Vatican’s new mascot and the clergy’s failure to protect children.

Despite other news, it seems that the Pope and other Vatican officials wanted to get on the anime hype train — and it seems to have worked on some level. People online are sharing anime-inspired fanart of Luce and memes getting away with the fact that Catholics are now getting an anime girl. Some of the art shows Luce in a more detailed style, but others make jokes about her hanging out with Jesus. Anyway, there are a lot 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 keep its Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan.