{"id":3895,"date":"2008-05-14T03:59:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-14T03:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=3895"},"modified":"2025-09-30T01:15:39","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T01:15:39","slug":"vatican-its-ok","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=3895","title":{"rendered":"Vatican: It’s OK to believe in life on other planets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Actually, this is not new, but it got some headlines today because of an interview given by the head of the Vatican Observatory. <\/p>\n

There IS an interesting theological question: did Jesus die to redeem mankind<\/del> humankind only, or did he die for all sentient life (assuming there is sentient life out there) throughout the universe? The answer seems to be – for humankind. <\/p>\n

Vatican Says It’s OK to Believe in Aliens – AOL News<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/u><\/p>\n

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"How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?" Funes said. "Just as we consider earthly creatures as ‘a brother,’ and ‘sister,’ why should we not talk about an ‘extraterrestrial brother’? It would still be part of creation."<\/p>\n

In the interview by the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, Funes said that such a notion "doesn’t contradict our faith" because aliens would still be God’s creatures. Ruling out the existence of aliens would be like "putting limits" on God’s creative freedom, he said.<\/p>\n

The interview, headlined "The extraterrestrial is my brother," covered a variety of topics including the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and science, and the theological implications of the existence of alien life.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/u><\/strong><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Actually, this is not new, but it got some headlines today because of an interview given by the head of the Vatican Observatory. There IS an interesting theological question: did Jesus die to redeem mankind humankind only, or did he die for all sentient life (assuming there is sentient life out there) throughout the universe? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9281,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3895\/revisions\/9281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}