Vatican’s Cosmic Apostasy: Artemis II and the Rejection of Christ’s Kingship
Summary of the Article
The cited article, published by the National Catholic Register’s Catholic News Agency on April 1, 2026, reports on comments from Jesuit Father Richard A. D’Souza, director of the Vatican Observatory since September 2025, regarding NASA’s Artemis II crewed lunar mission. D’Souza calls the mission “a great development” for scientific understanding of the moon’s origin and the potential for cosmic experiments shielded from Earth’s electromagnetic pollution. He acknowledges the Catholic Church’s historical support for space exploration but expresses concern that commercialization should benefit all humanity and warns against polluting “pristine environments in space” and creating space debris. He justifies the mission’s cautious, preparatory approach due to human risk. When asked if space exploration distracts from Earth’s suffering, he reiterates the Church’s support but stresses the need for international treaties to ensure peace, justice, and equitable benefit. He concludes by noting future medical challenges for long-duration missions like those to Mars.
Thesis: This interview, emanating from the “Vatican Observatory” of the conciliar sect, is a quintessential manifestation of post-Vatican II apostasy: it sacralizes naturalistic humanism, utterly omits the supernatural purpose of creation and man’s dominion under Christ the King, and replaces the Church’s divine mission to teach all nations with a secular agenda of “benefit for all” and environmental stewardship, thus propagating the errors of Modernism condemned by St. Pius X and the Syllabus of Errors.
The Naturalistic Reduction of a Supernatural Reality
The article presents space exploration solely through the lens of human progress, scientific curiosity, and planetary stewardship. Father D’Souza states the mission will lead to “answers about the origin of the moon” and allow “scientific experiments which could not be possible from the Earth.” The concerns voiced are about “commercial benefit,” “inequality and injustice,” “pollution of pristine environments,” and “space debris.” This is a complete evacuation of the supernatural. There is not a single mention of God as Creator, of man made in His image and given dominion over creation (Genesis 1:26-28), of the lunar bodies declaring the glory of God (Psalm 18:1), or of the ultimate purpose of all scientific endeavor: to know, love, and serve God, and thus save souls. The perspective is that of the Syllabus of Errors, which condemned the notion that “the civil power may interfere in matters relating to religion, morality and spiritual government” (Error #44) and that “the science of philosophical things and morals and also civil laws may and ought to keep aloof from divine and ecclesiastical authority” (Error #57). Here, the “Vatican” figure speaks as if the Church’s only concern is a secular form of global justice and environmentalism, a direct echo of the Modernist proposition condemned by St. Pius X: “Truth changes with man, because it develops with him, in him, and through him” (Lamentabili, Prop. 58).
The Heresy of Omission: Silence on Christ the King
The gravest error is not what is said, but what is systematically omitted. Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical Quas Primas on the feast of Christ the King, established this feast precisely to combat the secularism that “began with the denial of Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations” and leads to “the whole society profoundly shaken and heading towards destruction.” Pius XI taught that Christ’s kingdom “encompasses all men” and that “the state is happy not by one means, and man by another; for the state is nothing else than a harmonious association of men.” He explicitly stated that rulers must “publicly honor Christ and obey Him,” for “His royal dignity demands that all relations in the state be ordered on the basis of God’s commandments and Christian principles.” The Artemis II mission is a colossal human endeavor involving nations, vast resources, and international cooperation. A true Catholic voice, from the perspective of integral faith, would necessarily frame this within the reign of Christ the King. It would ask: Is this exploration done for the greater glory of God? Does it acknowledge His sovereignty over the heavens He created? Does it seek to use this knowledge to bring souls to the knowledge of Christ? The complete silence on these supernatural realities is a public apostasy. It reduces the Church to a mere ethical advisor for a secularized scientific enterprise, precisely the error of the “Church” that “ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Syllabus, Error #55).
Modernist “Concern” Masking Apostasy
D’Souza’s cautions about commercialization, inequality, and pollution are not Catholic social teaching as defined before 1958. They are the naturalistic, immanentist concerns of the modern world, cloaked in a thin, deceptive veneer of “Catholic” concern. This is the “synthesis of all heresies” (St. Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis) in action: the Lamentabili condemned propositions that “the dogmas of faith should be understood according to their practical function, i.e., as binding in action, rather than as principles of belief” (Prop. 26) and that “the Church is incapable of effectively defending evangelical ethics, because it steadfastly adheres to its views, which cannot be reconciled with modern progress” (Prop. 63). Here, the “Church’s” ethics are reduced to modern environmentalism and social equity—the “progress” of the world—while the “dogmas” of Creation, the Incarnation, and the Kingship of Christ are functionally ignored. The call for “international treaties and regulations” is a surrender of the Church’s unique, divine right to teach all nations (Matthew 28:19-20) to the secular realm of diplomacy, echoing the Syllabus’s condemnation of the idea that “the civil government… has a right to an indirect negative power over religious affairs” (Error #41).
The Jesuit and the Conciliar Sect’s Apostate Mission
The speaker, a Jesuit, is emblematic of the Order’s post-conciliar transformation. The Jesuits, once the vanguard of the Counter-Reformation, are now purveyors of this cosmic naturalism. His role as director of the “Vatican Observatory” is not to gaze at the stars and glorify their Creator, but to provide a “Catholic” fig leaf for the ambitions of a secular, NASA-led project. This is the fulfillment of the “ecclesiastical” role described in the Syllabus: “The Church has not the power of using force, nor has she any temporal power, direct or indirect” (Error #24) is now interpreted as the Church having no authoritative voice on the supernatural purpose of temporal endeavors. She is reduced to a consultant on ethics, a role the Syllabus explicitly rejected when it condemned the notion that “the ecclesiastical power ought not to exercise its authority without the permission and assent of the civil government” (Error #20). The “Vatican Observatory” speaks with the permission and assent of the “civil government” (NASA, commercial partners), offering only mild, secularizable cautions.
Contrast with Unchanging Catholic Teaching
Pre-1958 Catholic teaching is unequivocal. The purpose of all human endeavor, including scientific discovery, is the honor and glory of God and the salvation of souls. As Pius XI taught in Quas Primas, “the Kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men… He is the author of prosperity and true happiness for individual citizens as well as for the state.” True prosperity and happiness are supernatural, rooted in grace. The article’s focus on material “benefit,” “justice,” and “pollution” is a denial of this. Furthermore, the Syllabus condemned the error that “the civil power may… pass judgment on the instructions issued for the guidance of consciences, conformably with their mission, by the pastors of the Church” (Error #44). Inverting this, the conciliar “Vatican” now allows the secular “mission” of space exploration to set the agenda, offering only post-hoc moralizing on its implementation. This is the inversion of the proper order: “to God is given what is God’s… and because of God to Caesar what is Caesar’s” (Quas Primas). Here, Caesar’s (NASA’s) project is primary; God’s law is an afterthought for “benefit.”
Symptomatic of the Post-Conciliar Apostasy
This article is not an anomaly; it is the logical fruit of the conciliar revolution. The “Church” of the New Advent has embraced the world’s agenda—environmentalism, global governance, scientific progress—and merely baptized it with vague religious language. It is the exact “diversion from apostasy” warned of in the analysis of the Fatima apparitions: it focuses on external, material threats (space debris, inequality) while omitting “the main danger: modernist apostasy within the Church.” The director of the Vatican Observatory speaks of the “origin of the moon” without a single reference to “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). This is the “evolution of dogmas” in practice: the dogma of Creation is functionally denied in favor of a purely scientific, naturalistic inquiry. The article’s tone is cautiously optimistic, bureaucratic, and managerial—the precise “cautious, bureaucratic language” that exposes a “naturalistic and modernist mentality.” There is no zeal for the conversion of souls, no call for the lunar mission to carry a cross or a missionary, no vision of the moon as a creation to be redeemed in Christ. It is the religion of Quas Primas’s secularism made manifest: “when God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.”
Conclusion
The Artemis II mission, from a Catholic perspective, could be a profound act of stewardship and exploration under the reign of Christ the King. Instead, the conciliar sect’s “Vatican Observatory” presents it as a secular project with optional, secondary moral concerns. This is theological and spiritual bankruptcy. It is the Church of the New Advent, having abandoned the immutable faith, left to comment on the world’s projects from a position of irrelevance, offering a salt that has lost its savor (Matthew 5:13). The only “great development” here is the blatant exposure of the apostasy that has consumed the structures occupying the Vatican since the death of Pope Pius XII.
Source:
Artemis II Moon Mission ‘a Great Development,’ Vatican Observatory Director Says (ncregister.com)
Date: 01.04.2026