Vatican hires artist who worked on designs for sex toys to create pilgrim mascot
The Vatican hired an artist who had previously worked on designs for sex toys to create its new mascot, it has emerged.
Simone Legno has designed a mascot called Luce – the Italian for light – for the 2025 Holy Year Jubilee.
The Italian artist’s mascot is a young girl dressed in a yellow rain jacket and Wellington boots with a crucifix around her neck and a pilgrim’s staff in her hand.
The figure, inspired by Japanese cartoons, was officially unveiled at a press conference last week by Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the organiser of the special year of pilgrimage.
The archbishop underlined the mascot’s connection to “pop culture, so loved by our young people”, and said her large, luminous eyes were a symbol of “the hope that is borne in the heart of every pilgrim”.
But critics are asking whether the Vatican was aware that Mr Legno had previously worked on merchandise linked to Gay Pride events and a line of Lovehoney sex toys, including the “mini bullet vibrator” and the “massage wand vibrator”.
The artist’s varied professional past has enraged some conservative Catholics, who are already deeply critical of Pope Francis and his efforts to reform the church and make it more inclusive.
They say gay rights and sex toys are not in keeping with the Catholic Church’s core values.
“Ten million artists in Europe, and the Vatican picks this one. It’s not an accident,” one critic commented on the Catholic Vote website.
Another said: “How could they not have known about his other work? When you hire someone, you look at their past work to see if you like their style and if they can actually do what they claim.
“A simple Google search pulls up pornographic cartoons drawn by this guy. Are you kidding? We have a corrupt hierarchy.”
Peter Kwasniewski, a traditionalist Catholic commentator, described the artist as “a moral degenerate” whose past work was “quasi-pornographic”.
He claimed the 11 years of Pope Francis’s papacy had been marked by “the increasingly shrill defence of the indefensible, the waving aside of evils that cry out to heaven for vengeance”.
Mr Legno, an acclaimed artist who has worked for brands including Hello Kitty and Marvel, said when the designs were unveiled that it was “an immense honour” to have collaborated with the Vatican.
“I could never have imagined that I would bring my humble artistic contribution, pop culture, kawaii culture, to the Holy See. I am extremely grateful to the Dicastery for Evangelisation for opening its doors to my art,” he wrote on Instagram.
He later said he had come in for criticism for his past work, adding: “I’m getting flak from all over. There are people who’ve called me a homophobe because I’ve worked with the Vatican, while others are calling me a Satanist because 10 years ago we collaborated with a line of sex toys.”
The Vatican jubilee is a huge event for the Catholic Church, held roughly every 25 years. It is expected to bring around 25 million tourists and pilgrims to Rome.