After the launch of Apollo 11 from Cape Kennedy in 1969, Orlando’s Roman Catholic bishop said he should be the bishop of the moon. That was never made official, but now at least one of the diocese’s Central Florida schools has its own “moon tree.”

St. Peter Catholic School in DeLand received Wednesday a loblolly pine sapling from a seed that flew around the moon during NASA’s Artemis I mission in 2022. The school was one of only 50 chosen across the U.S. to receive the trees so far. It’s part of NASA’s Artemis Moon Trees initiative to spark interest in the space program.

The sapling was planted during a ceremony with school Principal Charlotte Funston, daughter of a former NASA engineer, sporting her father’s NASA lab coat for the event.

“You are living history and you need to remember this moment because there are no other moon trees here except ours,” Funston told her students. “You can tell your children, your grandchildren and great-grandchildren about this.”

The Diocese of Orlando was formed in 1968 and covered a 13-county region including Brevard County. When Apollo 11 launched, Bishop William Borders noted that the Catholic Church’s 1917 Code of Canon Law gave jurisdiction to any newly discovered territory to the diocese from which the expedition began. As such, he said his diocese should be ministering to the moon.

Although Borders discussed the idea with Pope Paul VI, the Catholic Church never ratified the celestial expansion. Still, Funston referenced it Wednesday.

“Bishop John Noonan is actually the bishop of the moon,” she said. “So it’s so wonderful that we have a moon tree on St. Peter Catholic School property.”

Standing about only 2 feet tall, the pine was planted in a patch of grass with plenty of sunlight by a group of the school’s girls who were members of the garden club.

“They’re highly intelligent, articulate, beautiful girls and this shows them that they can do just about anything that they put their mind to,” said school Spanish teacher and garden club sponsor Carmen Abell.

She said she believes the tree’s presence brings layers of meaning.

“It has definitely historical value, definitely scientific value and definitely value to our faith in Catholicism and in God — that things can be created outside of our Earth and brought here,” she said. “It just teaches us about life and how to respect life.”

The moon tree program is a sequel, of sorts, to the original moon trees grown from seeds taken to space by Apollo 14 astronaut Stuart Roosa, who worked for the U.S. Forest Service before joining NASA.

As command module pilot for that mission, he took hundreds of seeds to orbit the moon that were later grown into seedlings. They were planted among national monuments and given as gifts, with many tied to the U.S. Bicentennial in 1976.

They included a sycamore that lived for more than 40 years at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex before it was toppled by Hurricane Irma in 2017.

Two years, later, KSC opened its Moon Tree Garden outside the Apollo Saturn V Center with what are known as half-moon trees. These are born of second-generation seeds from the original moon trees. It has 12 of them to represent the 12 crewed Apollo missions and the 12 men who walked on the moon, all surrounding a statue of the Apollo 11 astronauts.

For its new moon missions, NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement partnered with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service to fly more than 1,000 seeds from among five species of tree in the Orion capsule on Artemis I, which flew nearly 270,000 miles away from Earth during its 25 1/2-day trip to space.

They include sycamores, sweetgums, Douglas firs, loblolly pines and giant sequoias, all to be germinated and grown into saplings by the Forest Service upon their return.

NASA said it had more than 2,000 applications from various institutions including schools and museums to receive one of the trees, and it will announce more recipients in waves through fall 2025.

Only two schools in Florida received a moon tree sapling, with Lawton Elementary in Oviedo getting a sweetgum that was also planted this week.

Each institution was chosen based on its suitability to care for the tree and its ability to “maximize educational opportunities around the life and growth of the tree in their communities,” according to a NASA press release.

“A new era of moon trees will one day stand tall in communities across America,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in the release. “NASA is bringing the spirit of exploration back down to Earth because space belongs to everyone. The Artemis Generation will carry forth these seedlings that will be fertile ground for creativity, inspiration and discovery for years to come.”