Vatican Observatory in Castel Gandolfo by H. Raab, CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0, here
Three weeks ago, the Vatican astronomer and Jesuit priest Guy Consolmagno gave an interview to katholisch.de, the media outlet of the German bishops’ conference. Since the topic of aliens is likely going to be more and more present in the media, I thought I’d address some of his comments in this article.
Consolmagno is an American Jesuit and has been the chief Vatican astronomer since 2015. He is soon leaving his post. In 2014, he co-wrote a book with another Jesuit with the title “Would You Baptize an Extraterrestial?”
In the relevant portion of the interview, he says:
“On the other hand, my science allows me to read Genesis as a book of theology, not as a book of science […]”
This is a strawman argument. Of course the book of Genesis and all the other books of Scripture are about theology. They are God’s revelation to teach us the matters of our faith. However, when Scripture speaks of historical events, those events are true. This includes the first eleven chapters of the Book of Genesis.
The question whether aliens exist or not has a gigantic impact on our theology. For example: are they fallen or not fallen? If they are fallen, how do they get saved? The Nicene Creed tells us about Jesus that “for us men and for our salvation, He came down from heaven”. The Council of Chalcedon declared in 471 that Jesus has only two natures: divine and human. Jesus also remains the Godman in all eternity. This means that there can’t be alien beings “more evolved” than humans.
“It is important to remember that nothing in our faith or in Scripture precludes the existence of other creatures that have a relationship with God. Our own tradition of angels is just one example of non-human life.”
Angels don’t have bodies, so this argument doesn’t work. Also, angels (and fallen angels) are not “one example”, they are the only beings other than humans mentioned anywhere in Scripture or in the Sacred Tradition of the Church.
“Elsewhere, the Psalms and other books of Scripture, such as Job and the prophet Baruch, speak of the stars themselves praising the Creator with their song. Do I actually believe that stars sing? That is irrelevant. What is important is that the poetic image naturally assumes that humans are not the only creatures created by God.”
Stars are objects, not intelligent beings. Just because Scripture uses imagery to show that all of creation displays the glory of God doesn’t mean that there are other intelligent, material beings like us humans.
“The idea that humans are unique in the universe does not come from Scripture; it is one of the many naive ideas promoted by Renaissance philosophers.”
I have already written an article with quotes from the Bible and various saints and popes hinting at the non-existence of aliens.
The fact of the matter is that Scripture never once even hints at the existence of aliens. This alone should make it clear that belief in aliens is foreign to the Christian worldview.
Also, in the tradition of the Church there has always been a latent rejection of alien belief. Popes Pius II and St. Zachary have condemned belief in other intelligent creatures, as I show in that article.
In a previous interview from 2017 with the German state radio station Deutschlandfunk Kultur, this astronomer stated:
“It has always been possible that God could create as many universes as he wanted. To deny this would be to deny God’s power. But the Church has always been open to this possibility.”
Of course God could have created aliens. That is not the point. The question is, did God create aliens?
This argument he makes, which is often repeated by Christian promoters of alien belief, can easily be turned on its head: If someone claims that we limit God if we say that he didn’t create aliens, then they are suggesting that God made a bad decision if He decided not to create aliens.
When asked: “would you baptize an alien?”, he responds:
“Only if they asked me for it. But in fact, that’s a very important answer. Because if you want to baptize someone, you have to have them in front of you, you have to be able to communicate with them, you have to find out whether you can understand them and whether they can understand you. All of this is a chain of prerequisites. And if this chain is broken somewhere, then the question arises—whether I would baptize them.”
Baptizing aliens might be a bit difficult. The CE4 Research Group, a Protestant research group analyzing UFO abductions since 1997, has collected 600 testimonies where the abduction stopped when the person called on the name of Jesus. Now, I wonder why?
In my opinion, this topic is of crucial importance and this is why I’m going to continue to discuss it on this site. Aliens may very well be one of the talking points of the Antichrist: he may claim that he comes to save the world from an alien invasion. A firm Christian (Catholic) understanding that there are no aliens can be a great help in resisting deceptions to come.