During his years as professor of fundamental theology at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University, Salvatore “Rino” Fisichella was often cited by American seminarians as their favorite professor—an exponent of dynamic orthodoxy whose engaging classroom style was a blessed relief from the stolid ways of the Roman academy. Later, after Pope John Paul II issued Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason), the 1998 encyclical that set Voltaire spinning in his grave, the joke in Rome was that, given the text’s likely drafters, the “F” and “R” in Fides and Ratio stood for “Fisichella” and “Ratzinger.” Ordained bishop in 1998 by the great Cardinal Camillo Ruini, John Paul’s Vicar for Rome, Fisichella played a key role in shaping the content of the Great Jubilee of 2000, after which he was an effective rector of the Pontifical Lateran University and an articulate advocate as president of the Pontifical Academy for Life.
So what was this distinguished churchman, an able theologian and competent administrator, doing this past October 28, trying to explain at a Vatican press conference why the Jubilee of 2025 needed a mascot named “Luce” (Italian for “light”), which looked as if it had been designed in a sixth-grade art class specializing in cartooning?
Quickly browsing one commentary on “Luce,” I first thought the author had referred to the mascot as “asinine,” which was true enough; on closer inspection, however, “Luce” is something known as an “anime” character, a genre of computer-generated “art” in which cutesy personalities typically feature (according to one source I consulted) “large and emotive eyes.” That’s certainly the case with “Luce.” Even sadder, however, were the eyes of Archbishop Fisichella at that press conference, trying to make the argument that “Luce” reflected the Church’s desire “to live even within the pop culture so beloved by our youth.”
Talk about taking one for the team. But Team What?
How is dumbing down Catholicism into anime (I almost wrote “asinine”!) characters going to attract young adults to Christ? John Paul II was a pied piper for the young and he never, ever dumbed things down. He made the faith accessible, yes, but he never dumbed Catholicism down. He challenged, but he never pandered. At Westerplatte in Poland in 1987, he didn’t appeal to pop culture but to the inspiring example of young Polish soldiers who held off a German assault on that peninsula in the first week of World War II.
We have come a long way from Michelangelo’s extraordinary frescoes on the Sistine Chapel ceiling to “Luce.” We have come an even longer way from John Paul II’s magnificent homily when the restoration of those frescoes was completed—in which the pope spoke of the Sistina as the “sanctuary of the theology of the body”—to the notion that a vaguely androgynous, although putatively female, anime character is going to bring young adults to Christ.
Jubilee 2025 is not being celebrated simply because another quarter-century has passed, and so the Holy Doors of Rome’s four papal basilicas can be opened, pilgrims can flock to the Eternal City, indulgences can be granted, and Italy’s tourism economy can go into overdrive. No, 2025 is the 1700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea, an event of absolutely critical importance for the history of Christianity. For it was at Nicaea I that the Church confronted head-on the threat of Arianism, which denied the divinity of Christ and thus called into question the two fundamental doctrines of the faith, the Incarnation and the Trinity. Had the Arians prevailed at Nicaea—and they had done an excellent job of propagating their heresy throughout the Mediterranean world—Christianity as we know it would not exist. The victory of the party of orthodoxy at Nicaea I is thus very much worth celebrating on this anniversary.
But with “Luce”? Please.
During the jubilee year, perhaps the people in Rome who gave us this mascot idiocy could take a moment to reflect on the success of New Evangelization initiatives that are, in fact, bringing young adults to Christ in the United States, including vibrant campus ministries like those at Texas A&M, North Dakota State, and the University of Maryland-Baltimore County; the Dominican-run Thomistic Institute and Aquinas 101; and the youth-directed work of the Augustine Institute and Word on Fire Ministries. Dumbed-down Catholicism, wallowing in kitsch, is of interest to no one—and certainly not to a seriously inquiring young adult. Catholicism in full is, because as we were instructed a long time ago, “the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).
I imagine St. Athanasius and the victors at Nicaea I would agree.
George Weigel’s column “The Catholic Difference” is syndicated by the Denver Catholic, the official publication of the Archdiocese of Denver.
George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington, D.C.’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies.
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