(LifeSiteNews) — On this week’s episode of Faith & Reason, John Henry-Westen, Father Charles Murr, and Frank Wright discuss the Vatican’s new “Luce” mascot for the upcoming Jubilee Year, the Synod on Synodality’s final document leaving the door open for women’s ordination to the diaconate, Candace Owens’ ban from Australia, Steve Bannon’s release from prison, and more.
The panel began the episode by discussing the Vatican’s unveiling of the official “Luce” anime mascot for the upcoming 2025 Jubilee Year, which they say will appeal to the youth. There are three other characters, Fe, Xin, and Sky, who make up “Luce and Friends.” Westen pointed out that “Luce” and “Fe” said together sound a lot like “Lucifer.” The Luce character wears a rainbow rosary around her neck and was even created by Simone Legno, whose company, Toki Doki, company celebrates LGBT “pride month” and even makes sex toys.
Fr. Murr said he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “First of all, if I were the parish priest and I’ve been a parish priest for many years, and somebody came to me with those choices for a baptism, a name for their child, I would reject all of them because not one of them is a Christian name, to begin with,” the priest said.
He then underscored that the characters might just sound silly at first, but when you see who created the mascot, it’s another Vatican scandal, and questioned why the Vatican would have a contract with such a company.
“You wonder who’s the friend in the Vatican who got this contract to these people? And why these people? I won’t go there with my wonderings. You wouldn’t do business with people like this; you just wouldn’t do business. My father wouldn’t do business, I wouldn’t do business, nobody I know would [do business] with such a company. And yet the Vatican for the holy year?” Fr. Murr said.
Westen jumped in to remind listeners that this isn’t the first time the Vatican has unveiled strange “artwork,” noting that back in 2017, it had a homoerotic nativity scene with an almost naked man, and Archbishop Paglia, currently the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, oversaw a bizarre, sexualized mural that featured nude people at the cathedral in Terni while he was bishop there.
“So, this is actually not surprising from this Vatican. The Vatican under Francis has seen a lot of this strange stuff,” the host said before turning to Wright, who highlighted the Vatican’s choice to create an anime mascot, considering that anime has a dark side that appeals to pedophiles.
“It’s notorious for this. It’s one of the reasons why the Japanese fellow noted as being the creator of anime or the father of anime, Hayao Miyazaki, said anime was a mistake, and I think his comments were worth bearing in mind when we look at this Vatican’s pitch to children using an extremely dubious set of images from a person whose lineage is obvious it marches under the banner of Satan. It’s as simple as that,” Wright said.
The panel then dove into the Synod on Synodality’s final document, which purported to leave the door open to women’s “ordination” to the diaconate. The draft document made no mention of “female deacons,” although Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández had claimed just days before the document’s release that the question of Holy Orders for women remains open.
Westen read part of the document’s text: “This Assembly asks for full implementation of all the opportunities already provided for in Canon Law with regard to the role of women, particularly in those places where they remain under-explored. There is no reason or impediment that should prevent women from carrying out leadership roles in the Church: what comes from the Holy Spirit cannot be stopped.”
“Additionally, the question of women’s access to diaconal ministry remains open. This discernment needs to continue,” the document read.
“So, now what is always forbidden is back on the table, and it’s preempted with ‘What comes from the Holy Spirit cannot be stopped,’” Westen said.
Fr. Murr stressed that no one should be surprised that Synod declared that this question remains open. The Vatican hasn’t allowed this yet because it’s seen the backlash to the homosexual “blessings” endorsed by Fiducia Supplicans, but Pope Francis’s Vatican will eventually allow “female deacons.”
“I think that kind of set them back on their heels a little bit, and they realized, ‘No, we’re going too fast in the destruction.’ So, they’re going to just slow it down a little bit. But there was never a doubt in my mind that they were going to say [at the Synod], ‘No women deacons.’ No, no, no, that question has already been decided. And it is not a question, there is no question if and when they push and get this somehow passed by who knows whom. And actually, call this Catholic doctrine now or practice that will be the beginning, the official beginning of the schism. The schism that they’re actually promoting, that’s what’s going to happen,” the priest said.
Wright agreed with Fr. Murr and emphasized that the Synod’s aim has always been to create a completely new religion.
“I think the simplest thing to do is to consider what the Catholic Church was and what it is now. And, if you compare these two things side by side, for example, if you go to one of these progressive Masses and you go to a traditional Catholic Mass, have a look and see whether you can consider these two things to be the same. Now, the presentation of different things as the same is a feature of the entire liberal global order.”
“We are faced with counterfeits and replacements everywhere, and we are encouraged to believe that this is continuity, that this is the same. I think what Fr. Murr is saying is that it’s become obvious. Something different is developing, and that difference means the end of the traditional Catholic doctrine and its replacement with a new one,” the journalist said.
For more discussion on the Vatican’s new controversial mascot, the document leaving the question of “women’s ordination” open, and much more, tune in to this week’s episode of Faith & Reason.
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