Artemis II’s Naturalistic Easter Message Denies Christ’s Kingship

Factual Summary of the Article

The EWTN News article from April 7, 2026, reports on the NASA Artemis II mission’s mid-journey communications. Mission pilot Victor Glover, who took a Bible into space, offered a reflection on Easter, stating: “As we are so far from Earth and look back at… the beauty of creation… you have this amazing place, this spaceship.” He described Earth as “a spaceship called Earth” and an “oasis” in “this whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call the universe.” Glover urged unity, saying: “we’ve gotta get through this together,” and referenced Christ’s commandments to “love God with all your heart” and “love your neighbor.” Mission specialist Jeremy Hansen proposed naming a lunar crater “Carroll” to honor commander Reid Wiseman’s late wife, calling it “especially meaningful for this crew.” The article frames these moments as a “mission of the heart” highlighting “faith, family, and a life lost,” presenting a generic, humanistic spirituality devoid of Catholic doctrinal content.

Linguistic Analysis: The Tone of Naturalistic Humanism

The article’s language is saturated with naturalistic and humanistic terminology. Earth is reduced to a “spaceship,” a mere technological vessel adrift in “this whole bunch of nothing.” This vocabulary echoes the pantheistic and materialist errors condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors (Proposition 1: “God is identical with the nature of things”). The focus is on human solidarity (“we’ve gotta get through this together”) and sentimental remembrance (naming a crater for a deceased spouse), which replaces the supernatural order with immanent, earthly concerns. There is no mention of sin, grace, the sacraments, or the necessity of the Church for salvation—the very pillars of Catholic theology. The tone is one of vague, inclusive spirituality, perfectly aligning with the “indifferentism” Pius IX condemned (Syllabus, Propositions 15-17): “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which… he shall consider true… Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation.”

Theological Confrontation: Omission of Christ’s Social Kingship

The article’s central failure is its complete omission of the social reign of Jesus Christ, a doctrine defined by Pope Pius XI in the encyclical Quas Primas. The astronauts’ message, while referencing Christ’s commandments, utterly fails to apply them to the public order. Pius XI taught that Christ’s kingdom “encompasses all men” and that “states… are subject to the authority of Christ.” He declared that the feast of Christ the King was instituted as a remedy against the “plague” of secularism: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The Artemis II crew speaks of Earth as a shared “spaceship” governed by human cooperation, not as a polity bound by the divine law and the authority of the Catholic Church as its guide. This is a direct rejection of Catholic doctrine. As Pius XI stated: “The state must leave the same freedom to the members of Orders and Congregations… [but] the Church… cannot depend on anyone’s will.” The article promotes a secular, globalist humanism that Pius IX’s Syllabus explicitly condemns (Proposition 55: “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church”).

Symptomatic Analysis: The Fruit of the Conciliar Apostasy

This article is a perfect symptom of the post-conciliar “abomination of desolation.” It emanates from EWTN, a flagship of the neo-church, which has fully embraced the “hermeneutics of continuity” and naturalistic religion. The crew’s message embodies the Modernist synthesis condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu. Proposition 25 states: “Faith, as assent of the mind, is ultimately based on a sum of probabilities.” Glover’s Easter reflection is precisely this: a subjective, probabilistic feeling about “beauty” and “togetherness,” not an assent to the defined dogma of the Resurrection. Proposition 26 adds: “The dogmas of faith should be understood according to their practical function, i.e., as binding in action, rather than as principles of belief.” Christ’s commandments are reduced to a vague ethical principle for “getting through this together,” stripped of their supernatural efficacy and their demand for the public profession of the Catholic faith. The article’s silence on the necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation (Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus) and the obligation of states to recognize the Catholic religion as the sole true religion (Syllabus, Proposition 21) is the gravest accusation. It preaches a religion of man, not of God.

Exposure of the “Faith” Presented: A Pseudo-Christian Idolatry

The article lauds the crew’s “faith,” but what faith is it? It is a faith without dogmas, without the Church, without the sacraments. It is the “natural religion” Pius IX condemned (Syllabus, Proposition 16: “Man may… find the way of eternal salvation” in any religion). Glover’s Bible is presumably a Protestant version, as NASA is a secular entity; there is no hint of the Catholic Bible or the Mass. The honoring of “Carroll” by naming a lunar crater is a pagan, idolatrous act—a sacrilegious attempt to deify human memory on a celestial body, violating the First Commandment. This is the “cult of man” Pius XI warned against in Quas Primas: when Christ is removed, “the entire human society had to be shaken.” The article presents this humanistic cult as noble, while the true Catholic faith demands that all honor and glory be given to God alone, and that the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints be invoked as intercessors, not human memories enshrined on dead rocks.

Condemnation of the Clerical Approbation

The article originates from EWTN, a “Catholic” media outlet that operates with the approval of the conciliar “papal” authorities. This is a damning indictment of the “clerics” who run such platforms. They are guilty of apostasy, promoting a naturalistic religion under the guise of Christianity. St. Pius X, in Pascendi Dominici gregis (which Lamentabili reinforces), called Modernists “the most pernicious of all the adversaries of the Church.” By broadcasting this message, EWTN’s “priests” and “staff” are disseminating the “synthesis of all heresies.” They are like the false prophets of old, who “say, Peace, peace; when there is no peace” (Jer. 6:14). The article’s conclusion—that this is a “mission of the heart”—is a lie. The true mission of the Church is to “teach all nations… to observe all things whatsoever” Christ commanded (Matt. 28:20), not to float in space promoting sentimental humanism. The “heart” here is the heart of the apostate conciliar sect, which has exchanged the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary for the idolatrous worship of man and his “achievements.”

Final Doctrinal Verdict

The Artemis II message, as presented and approved by EWTN, is a manifestly heretical and idolatrous expression of Modernism. It denies:

The social kingship of Christ over all nations (Quas Primas).
The exclusive salvific role of the Catholic Church (Syllabus, Prop. 21).
The objective, historical truth of the Resurrection (Lamentabili, Prop. 36).
The necessity of grace and the sacraments for salvation.

It promotes:

Religious indifferentism (Syllabus, Props. 15-17).
The separation of Church and State (Syllabus, Prop. 55).
The cult of man and naturalistic humanism (Quas Primas, Pius XI’s critique of secularism).

This is not a “Christian” message; it is the “peace of the Antichrist,” which St. Pius X warned would be a naturalistic, humanistic peace that denies the supernatural order. The true Catholic response is not to gaze at Earth as a “spaceship,” but to recognize it as the Lord’s—”The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof” (1 Cor. 10:26)—and to work for the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King through the only true Church, outside of which there is no salvation. The crew’s words are the empty noise of the “new world order” of the conciliar apostasy, and EWTN’s dissemination of them makes it a willing instrument of the “synagogue of Satan” (Apoc. 2:9).

Source:
A mission of the heart: Artemis II crew honors faith, family, and a life lost (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 07.04.2026