Vatican's Chief Astronomer -Advanced Extraterrestrial Life Not An Accident

February 23, 2009

Vatican's Chief Astronomer -Advanced Extraterrestrial Life Not An Accident

The Vatican's chief astronomer says there is no conflict between believing in God and in the possibility of extraterrestrial civilizations perhaps more evolved than humans.

"In my opinion this possibility exists," said the Reverend José Gabriel Funes, head of the Vatican Observatory and a scientific adviser to Pope Benedict XVI, referring to life on other planets.

"How can we exclude that life has developed elsewhere," he said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, published in its Tuesday-Wednesday edition. The large number of galaxies with their own planets makes this possible, he noted.

Asked if he was referring to beings similar to humans or even more evolved than humans, he said: "Certainly, in a universe this big you can't exclude this hypothesis."

In the interview headlined, "The extraterrestrial is my brother," Funes said he saw no conflict between belief in such beings and faith in God.

"Just as there is a multiplicity of creatures on earth, there can be other beings, even intelligent, created by God. This is not in contrast with our faith because we can't put limits on God's creative freedom. Why can't we speak of a 'brother extraterrestrial'? It would still be part of creation."

Funes, who runs the observatory that is based south of Rome and in Arizona, held out the possibility that the human race might actually be the "lost sheep" of the universe. There could be other beings "who remained in full friendship with their creator," he said.

Funes commentary is a giant step away from the historical record that includes the Inquisition, which condemned Galileo in the 17th century for insisting that the Earth revolved around the Sun. The Roman Catholic Church did not rehabilitate him until 1992.

Funes said he believed as an astronomer that the most likely explanation for the start of the universe was "the big bang," the theory that it sprang into existence from dense matter billions of years ago. But he said this was not in conflict with faith in God as creator. "God is the creator," he said. "There is a sense to creation. We are not children of an accident."

He added: "As an astronomer, I continue to believe that God is the creator of the universe and that we are not the product of something casual but children of a good father who has a project of love in mind for us."

Posted by Casey Kazan.

Comments

Any article presenting an opinion affiliated with the Vatican on a site which offers "fascinating news and original insights on science, space exploration, etc." is always welcomed comic relief. This article made me laugh. Thank you.

Posted by: VX | February 23, 2009 at 02:26 AM

Pope's star watcher to visit Nasa and talk aliens... Vatican and Planet X... Secrets of the Vatican - UFO's in the Ancient Art:
http://cristiannegureanu.blogspot.com/2009/02/popes-star-watcher-to-visit-nasa-and.html

Posted by: Mike | February 23, 2009 at 07:07 AM

I've repeated this on another blog.......

God's experiment did not work here on Earth, therefore, who is to say that he didn't try someplace else and gave them the same test!
It would be interesting to see how they faired....

Posted by: maudyfish | February 23, 2009 at 08:08 AM

Of course two hundred years ago this same bible would have been used as justification for burning anyone who believed intelligent life existed elsewhere. This is so obviously just a religious body panicking at the increasing possibility of having their beliefs and way of life shattered, leaving their own lives meaningless and wasted. As a form of self preservation they are setting up beforehand new parameters to allow them to keep their delusional beliefs in tact in order to survive themselves.

Posted by: Keith | February 23, 2009 at 10:58 AM

We are the result of chemical reactions, just like our original begining, the star dust. And like the stars we born, we burn, and we die. The idea of a god, i think, is the result of a collective memory of our atoms of something is happening all the time to the matter: born, burn and die. But the matter, the atoms, in reality don't die, they just change of state, so in a certain sense they are eternal, and we too because we are made of the dust of the stars. And our atoms remember that, maybe thats why we are fascinate with the universe. We are made at the image of the Universe.

Posted by: Helder | February 23, 2009 at 12:04 PM

Giordano Bruno would be proud to know that those who burned him to death for believing in a populated universe have come around to his point of view. What a difference 409 years can make!

Posted by: Gregorio | February 24, 2009 at 05:01 AM

god ? je je je
look this http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

Posted by: Rene Sigma | February 24, 2009 at 08:18 AM

In a universe this extremely huge, I find it hard to believe that God - or Whomever you choose to believe in - would only put life on 1 small planet orbiting a mediocre - to - piddling small star. Whether He did it in 6 days, as the Bible says, by speaking a word, or over several million or even SEVERAL MILLION years via the process of evolution, I don't know because I wasn't there. It's a possibility that He created all kinds of other life on other worlds in other star systems, via Darwinian evolution.

You wouldn't believe how hard the influence of Southern Baptist Christianity is to work around, but I can make room in my mind for theistic evolution.

Posted by: EvilCosmicMonkey From Knoxville | February 25, 2009 at 10:57 AM

Excuse me, I meant to say SEVERAL BILLION in my previous entry. Anyway, my mind is entirely open to the concept of evolution as a Divine method of Creation. None of us were there, so we can only make ( mostly ) educated guesses from evidence.

Posted by: EvilCosmicMonkeyFrom Knoxville | February 25, 2009 at 11:41 AM