Update (August 4, 2009)
This post's link to MSNBC.com is no longer valid, the article is no longer available.
"Vatican astronomer says believing in aliens does not contradict faith in God"
msnbc.com (May 13, 2008)
"VATICAN CITY - Aliens could be out there, and believing that the universe may contain extraterrestrial life does not contradict a faith in God, the Vatican's chief astronomer said in an interview published Tuesday.
"The vastness of the universe — with its hundred billion galaxies and trillions of stars — means there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones, the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, a Jesuit who directs the Vatican Observatory, was quoted as saying."
Amazing! Astounding! Incredible!
Actually, not.
For me, this headline has all the shock value of "American Basketball Association Allows Cheering at Games." But then, I'm Catholic, I'm interested in space exploration and related topics, and I read quite a bit.
It's a big universe. We don't know if there's life on other planets, but evidence is growing that there could life out there, somewhere. In fact, optimists have said that the odds are pretty good. (Pessimists have come close to demonstrating that there can't be life on Earth, too.)
And, informed Catholics have been thinking and writing for some time about the implications of finding alien life: pond scum, interstellar space ship commanders, souvenir sellers, whatever. There's a chapter in "Brother Astronomer: Adventures of a Vatican Scientist," by Guy Consolmagno (McGraw-Hill, 2000), titled "Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial?" (The answer is "yes" - the requirements would be the same as those for baptizing an Irishman.)
There's more:
- "Vatican scientist says belief in God and aliens is OK"
Reuters (May 14, 2008) (article no longer available) - " Vatican says aliens could exist"
BBC News (May 13, 2008)
There's an interesting discussion of this topic going on at BlogCatalog:
"Vatican says aliens might be without original sin"
BlogCatalog discussion thread (started May 14, 2008)
Related posts, at
update (December 9, 2009)
Related post, in another blog:
- "Really Old Dust Grains, a Galactic Collision, and a Lively Interest in God's Creation"
A Catholic Citizen in America (August 10, 2009)
4 comments:
My wife is Catholic and I am a jew - so if they can babtize a jew - they can babtize an alien - just go to RCIA an your in!
Laughs... like cheering at a basketball game...
too funny
Benny Greenberg,
Thanks for your comment. And the good words.
I applaud the Catholic Church for addressing the issue. In the vastness of space it is likely there is other intelligent life, and how we as Christians respond is compelling ( http://blogs.pioneerlocal.com/religion/ ). Equally interesting was Rev. Funes' statement that aliens might not need salvation, because they may have remained in harmony with their creator.
Brett,
Thanks for the comment.
What's 'news' in this news is that it's from a Vatican source. That's not the same as being "official," any more than what a federal worker in Washington says in an interview is official American policy.
However, it is interesting to note that this subject is being discussed in the Vatican: and that the discussion got into the mainstream media.
Thanks for that URL. I followed it, and read it with interest. The Peanuts / Jesus / ET connection was a good point.
One quibble: "Yet now it is OK to believe in extraterrestrials, according to the official Vatican astronomer." [emphasis mine]
"Yet now" puzzles me a bit. Steven Spielberg, Robert L. Short, and "The Gospel According to Peanuts" have no official connection with the Catholic Church: which seems to be implied by those two words in the paragraph following the Spielberg story.
I think there may be a perception that the Vatican astronomer is stating a change in policy at the Vatican. Not so, although I can see how someone might have that gotten that idea.
Some thirty or forty years ago, before I became a Catholic, I read some traditional Protestant and (unofficial) Catholic writings on UFOs. Flying saucer cults were a rather high-profile thing then.
A few people were not merely interested in the possibility that people who aren't human might live on other worlds. They were convinced that this is so, and that the space aliens would come and solve all our problems.
It was difficult for me to distinguish the tone of this belief from that of religious zealots.
Some Christians of the period were concerned, and wrote about the dangers of 'believing in UFOs.' I think they were right. (The Hale-Bopp / Heaven's Gate mess, recently, is an extreme example of the sort of cults I'm talking about.)
However, local priests warning about the dangers of a pop-culture cult involving 'Encounters of the Third Kind' - style space aliens is not the same as the Catholic Church stating that Catholics must not believe that hard evidence suggests the possibility of life elsewhere - and that some of that life could be people.
Enough. This is turning into an essay.
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