(LifeSiteNews) — The Vatican confirmed to a Catholic reporter that a pro-LGBT company owns the likeness to the recently unveiled Luce mascot for Jubilee Year 2025.
Tokidoki, a pro-LGBT company responsible for the creation of demonic adult sex toy designs, holds these rights.
Chris Lewis of the art company Baritus Catholic Illustration wrote Monday on X that he had received clarification from the Vatican that Tokidoki, the Italian pop culture brand responsible for the Luce and Friends mascots, owns the copyright, not the Vatican.
Tokidoki has created “Pride” month merchandise and partnered with a company that produces sex toys similar in design to the Vatican’s mascot.
Last month, the Vatican unveiled Luce, a young female pilgrim who has blue hair, wears a yellow raincoat and muddy boots, carries a staff, and has a rainbow-colored rosary around her neck, as its official mascot for the upcoming Jubilee Year 2025.
In addition to Luce, there are three other mascots – Fe, Xin, and Sky – who don the other three colors on the Jubilee’s logo: red, green, and blue. Together, they make up “Luce and friends.”
During the unveiling press conference, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization and organizer of the Jubilee, emphasized that the mascot was created to draw more young people into the Church through “pop culture.”
Tokidoki co-founder Simone Legno, the Italian artist behind “Luce and Friends,” echoed those sentiments in the Vatican’s press release.
“The Jubilee is undoubtedly a unique opportunity for encounter and dialogue for millions of people, including many young people,” Legno said. “I hope that the pilgrim Luce can represent the sentiments that resonate in the hearts of the younger generations.”
The artist also underscored being raised as a Catholic in the press release.
“I grew up in Rome in a Catholic family, where I learned the principles of a faith grounded in generosity and respect for others,” Legno said.
Despite growing up Catholic, Legno’s company, Tokidoki, has previously endorsed “LGBT pride,” selling “pride”-themed merchandise such as digital wallpapers, “art,” and hats on its website.
Even more glaringly, Tokidoki was responsible for the production of a large range of sex toys in collaboration with Lovehoney, a British producer of such items. These items, launched in 2016, were designed with a similar, distinctive Tokidoki kitsch aesthetic to “Luce and Friends.”
AVN Media Network wrote the following announcing the launch:
“Lovehoney has joined forces with tokidoki, a Japanese pop-culture brand with a name that means “sometimes” – to launch a range of whimsical designer sex toys.
Lovehoney’s most popular products have been reimagined for a new collection, which will feature never-before-seen designs created exclusively for the tokidoki x Lovehoney collaboration. The result is a vibrant “kawaii” (Japanese for “cute”) range emblazoned with characters designed by tokidoki’s co-founder and creative director, Simone Legno.”
NB: In the interests of Christian modesty, we will not be linking to any sites or including any pictures. The product descriptions and reviews available online are exceedingly graphic, and we have attempted to keep this article as clean as possible. Nonetheless, some may still find a proximate occasion of sin, and should close this page if this seems likely.
One of these products depicted a smiling red devil character holding what is probably a trident, and with a similar aesthetic to the “Luce and Friends” mascots.
Lovehoney no longer stocks these products, although they are still for sale elsewhere. The Wayback Machine shows the official Lovehoney product description for one of the sex toys designed by the “Luce and Friends” creators, but it is too explicit to reproduce here.
It is unclear why the Vatican selected Legno as the designer of the Jubilee Year mascots and why they allowed Tokidoki to retain ownership.
Some have defended the mascot and even justified the choice to work with a promoter of degenerate sexual vice with reference to the imperfect morality of some of the great masters of the Renaissance period. However, the quality of the artwork hardly seems comparable; more important, the public promotion of degenerate sexual vice is not comparable with personal moral failings, even if widely known.