The “Story of Humanity” vs. The Kingdom of Christ
The NASA Artemis II mission, launched during Easter week 2026, is presented not as a technological achievement but as a profound symptom of the apostasy foretold by Pope Pius IX and Pope St. Pius X. The article, from the EWTN News DC Bureau, centers on the mission’s timing and the rhetoric of its participants, particularly NASA/JPL chief scientist Jonathan Lunine, a self-identified Catholic. The core message is a naturalistic, human-centered triumph: a “story of humanity,” “human history,” and a mission “for all human beings.” This is the precise error condemned by Quas Primas: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The article’s silence on the Resurrection during Easter, its focus on demographic “firsts” (first woman, first Black astronaut to the moon), and its framing of space exploration as an act of collective human pride, constitute a public apostasy. It replaces the reign of Christ the King with the cult of man, a direct violation of the first commandment and the teaching of Quas Primas that “the hope of lasting peace will not yet shine upon nations as long as individuals and states renounce and do not wish to recognize the reign of our Savior.”
1. Factual Deconstruction: The Idolatry of “Humanity”
The article states:
“It’s about human history. It’s the story of humanity, not Black history, not women’s history, but that it becomes human history.” – Victor Glover
This is indifferentism, condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors (Proposition 16): “Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation.” Here, “humanity” is the new religion. The mission is sacralized as an act of collective human worship, echoing the modernist error of “the evolution of dogmas” into a “dogmaless Christianity” (Lamentabili, Prop. 65). The article notes the coincidence with Easter but fails to connect the moon mission to the Resurrection. This silence is damning. Where is the mention of Christ’s victory over death? Where is the acknowledgment that all authority in heaven and earth belongs to Him (Matt. 28:18), not to human ambition? The Apollo 8 crew read Genesis on Christmas Eve; Artemis II’s crew says nothing of Christ on Easter. This is not progress; it is the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place—the replacement of sacred truth with profane humanism.
2. Linguistic & Rhetorical Analysis: The Language of Modernist Apostasy
The language is carefully secularized: “mission for ‘humanity’,” “story of humanity,” “economic benefits,” “scientific discovery.” This is the language of Quas Primas’s “secularism of our times, so-called laicism.” The term “humanity” is used as a vague, pantheistic substitute for God. The article quotes Lunine, a Catholic scientist, without challenge to his contradiction: working for a state-funded, explicitly secular space program that promotes a religiously neutral (i.e., atheistic) worldview. His statement, “The United States has not been back to the moon… this is really developing completely new hardware,” is a hymn to technological materialism. There is no language of ad majorem Dei gloriam. The tone is bureaucratic, celebratory of diversity metrics (“first female,” “first Black”), and utterly devoid of supernatural perspective. This is the “naturalistic and modernist mentality” specified in the instructions—a worldview where man is the measure of all things, and God, if mentioned at all, is a private sentiment.
3. Theological Confrontation: Christ’s Kingship vs. The Cult of Man
Quas Primas is unequivocal:
“The Kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men… His reign extends not only to Catholic nations… but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.”
The Artemis narrative directly contradicts this. It presents a “kingdom” of human achievement, governed by NASA and international partners, subject to no higher authority than human reason and political consensus. The article states the mission aims for “scientific discovery, economic benefits, and… a foundation for missions to Mars.” This is the “natural religion” Pius IX condemned (Syllabus, Prop. 5). It reduces the purpose of human endeavor to earthly prosperity, ignoring the primary end of man: the knowledge, love, and service of God in this life, and eternal happiness in the next. The “kingdom” of Artemis is built on the premise that “human reason, without any reference whatsoever to God, is the sole arbiter of truth and falsehood” (Syllabus, Prop. 3). The astronauts are hailed as pioneers of a new human era, not as missionaries of the one true faith.
4. Symptomatic Analysis: The Conciliar Revolution’s Fruit
This article is a perfect fruit of the conciliar sect’s apostasy. The “Church of the New Advent” has systematically dismantled the doctrine of Christ’s Social Kingship. Vatican II’s Gaudium et Spes promoted a “dialogue” with the world, leading to the “dignity of the human person” becoming the central dogma, replacing the dogma of Christ’s Kingship. The article’s emphasis on “human dignity” (via “firsts”) and “human history” is pure Gaudium et Spes naturalism. The silence on Easter is the logical outcome of the post-conciliar “hermeneutics of continuity” that relativizes the Resurrection’s exclusive salvific power. The conciliar sect’s “ecumenism” and “dialogue” have produced a generation (like Lunine) who can be “Catholic” while promoting a secular, pantheistic vision of humanity’s destiny. This is the “synthesis of all errors” – Modernism (Lamentabili, Prop. 26) – where the supernatural is evaporated, leaving only a vague, evolutionary humanism. The “mission for humanity” is the new Mass of the Antichrist, where man offers himself as the sacrifice.
5. The Omission of Easter: The Gravest Accusation
The article explicitly notes the mission occurs during Easter week. It mentions Apollo 8’s Christmas Eve Genesis reading as a historical point of comparison. The complete absence of any reference to the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ is not an oversight; it is the definitive statement of the new religion. In the true Catholic faith, Easter is the Feast of Feasts, the triumph over death, the cornerstone of our hope. For a “Catholic” scientist to participate in a globally celebrated event during this holiest of weeks without a single word of testimony to the Risen Christ is a public denial of the Faith. It is the practical implementation of the Syllabus’s condemned proposition: “The faith of Christ is in opposition to human reason… and is even hurtful to the perfection of man” (Prop. 6). The message is clear: human spaceflight is a greater good than the Incarnation and Resurrection. This is Satanic.
6. Critique of the “Catholic” Scientist: A Study in Compromise
Jonathan Lunine is presented as a credible Catholic voice. But his work for NASA, an agency of a state that officially promotes religious neutrality (i.e., state atheism), and his participation in a mission framed in purely naturalistic terms, place him in a state of manifest apostasy. He gives an interview to EWTN, a “Catholic” network that has long since embraced the conciliar errors, without challenging the fundamental premise of the mission. Where is his duty to “preach the Gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15)? Where is his obligation to “bring into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5)? His silence is complicity. He represents the “lazy and timid good” of which Pius XI spoke in Quas Primas, who “do not want to oppose or resist too gently,” allowing “the enemies of the Church act with greater audacity.” Lunine is not a Catholic scientist; he is a scientist who retains a cultural Catholic identity while serving the golden calf of human progress.
7. The True Catholic Perspective: Christ the King, Not Man the Pioneer
The only legitimate Catholic response to such an event is one of sober judgment. The moon is a creature of God, subject to the dominion of Christ the King. Human exploration, if ordered to the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls, can be good. But the Artemis mission, as framed, is an act of pride, a attempt to “make a name for ourselves” (Gen. 11:4) – the sin of Babel. It seeks to establish a “kingdom” without the King. The true “story” is not of humanity, but of the Incarnate Word, who “upholds all things by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3). The true “history” is Sacred History, culminating in the Resurrection, which Artemis II ignores. The true “first” is not a demographic category, but the first-born from the dead, Christ Jesus (Col. 1:15, 18). The mission’s timing during Easter is a diabolical mockery: while the world celebrates a human achievement, the faithful mourn the public rejection of their God.
Conclusion: A Call to Repudiation
This article, and the event it describes, must be repudiated with the full force of Catholic doctrine. The Syllabus of Errors condemns the very principles underlying it: that “the State… is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits” (Prop. 39), that “human reason… is the sole arbiter” (Prop. 3), and that “the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Prop. 55). The Artemis II mission is a liturgical act of the conciliar sect, a sacrifice offered to the modern idol of “Humanity.” The only appropriate Catholic response is the one Pius XI demanded in Quas Primas: the public confession that “our Lord Jesus Christ is King of glory,” and the refusal to acknowledge any “king” but Him. All glory, honor, and dominion belong to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Ghost. To Artemis, to NASA, to the “story of humanity,” we say: Non serviam. We serve Christ the King alone.
Source:
NASA’s Artemis II begins Easter week mission around the moon (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 02.04.2026