Last week, the Vatican unveiled Luce, a Japanese-style cartoon character that will serve as the Catholic Church’s mascot for its upcoming jubilee year, as well as its Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan.
Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the Vatican’s chief organizer for the jubilee year who presented Luce to the world, said that the mascot was “created from the desire to enter into the world of pop culture, so beloved by our young people”.
I believe his excellency should have considered his desires more carefully, because there is no clearer sign that Luce has indeed entered pop culture and is beloved by young people than the fact that there are now dozens of AI-generated hardcore pornographic images of her on the internet.
On Civitai, a site for sharing custom AI models and generating images, users have created at least a dozen different Luce-themed AI models specifically for generating images of the Vatican’s mascot. These models are not explicitly designed to produce adult content, but as I’ve reported previously Civitai makes it easy to modify AI models and combine them with others that are designed to produce pornographic images, and that is often what users on the site do with any AI models of any character or real person.
Looking at just one model page, Luce - Vatican’s Mascot [PONY], in the section where users share images they’ve created with that model, I can see images of Luce nude, covered in semen, and a nude Luce alongside what appears to be a Luce Fleshlight-type sex toy.
“If you came here for what everyone else came here for, then you won’t be disappointed,” one user said in a comment on the model’s page. “Lord forgive me for what I am about to do,” another user said.
“We’ve staunchly refused to admit to, or reflect on any of our behaviors for centuries, while burying the evidence of our misdeeds, and bullying all naysayers.”
Yeah, I can imagine it’s hard for the Church to have perspective.