In his morning homily last May 12 at Casa Santa Marta, Pope Francis told his mostly clerical audience that they should keep an open mind to anyone or anything – seeking God. “If – for example – tomorrow an expedition of Martians came, and some of them came to us, here … Martians, right? Green, with that long nose and big ears, just like children paint them … And one says, ‘But I want to be baptized!’ What would happen?” he asked parishioners. “When the Lord shows us the way, who are we to say, ‘No, Lord, it is not prudent! No, let’s do it this way….’”
Truth be told, while Pope Francis may have expressed it a bit unexpectedly and a bit more casually in the vernacular than usual, there is a history to this line of thought in the Vatican, especially among the religious who are astronomers at the world-renowned Vatican Observatory. Surprised? Of course, you’re not. Not if you’re Catholic, anyway. Everyone else? Yeah, well that’s a different solar system you non-Catholics are in, I daresay, when it comes to the thinking from the best scientific minds in Rome. And Pope Francis. Protestants come home!
In 2008, Father José Gabriel Funes, the director of the Vatican Observatory, one of the oldest astronomical research institutions in the world, wrote in L’Osservatore Romano that “believing in the possible existence of extraterrestrial life is not opposed to Catholic doctrine” in an article entitled “The Alien is my Brother.”
He said that since astronomers even Catholic ones – believe that the universe is made up of 100 billion galaxies, so it is not reasonable to discount that some could have planets. “How could it not be left out that life developed elsewhere?” he asked? “As a multiplicity of creatures exist on earth, so there could be other beings, also intelligent, created by God. This does not contrast with our faith because we cannot put limits on the creative freedom of God. [According to] Saint Francis, if we consider earthly creatures as ‘brother’ and ‘sister,’ why cannot we also speak of an ‘extraterrestrial brother’? It would therefore be a part of creation.”
Two years later in 2010, fellow Vatican Observatory research astronomer and planetary scientist Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno wrote a pamphlet, Intelligent Life in the Universe? Catholic belief and the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life, originally published by the Catholic Truth Society in London. In it, he explored a number of questions, including whether aliens exist, and if they do and have souls, could they be baptized?
“The limitless universe might even include other planets with other beings created by that same loving God,” Consolmagno wrote. “The idea of there being other races and other intelligences is not contrary to traditional Christian thought. There is nothing in Holy Scripture that could confirm or contradict the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.”
Fast-forward four years. Consolmagno, the co-ordinator for public relations at the Vatican Observatory, located on the grounds of the pope’s summer residence at Castel Gandolfo in Italy, less than 24 kilometres southeast of Rome, is back with another book, Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial?’ and Other Questions from the Astronomers’ In-box at the Vatican Observatory, co-authored with Father Paul Mueller, a fellow astronomer at the Vatican Observatory, who is a philosopher of science and serves as superior of the Jesuit community at Castel Gandolfo. Its dependent research centre, the Vatican Observatory Research Group, is hosted by Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona in Tucson and operates the 1.8m Alice P. Lennon Telescope with its Thomas J. Bannan Astrophysics Facility, known together as the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT), located at the Mount Graham International Observatory (MGIO) in southeastern Arizona.
A graduate of St. Xavier Jesuit High School in Cincinnati, Mueller holds a B.S. in physics from Boston University and an M.A. in philosophy from Loyola University of Chicago. He also holds M.Div and S.T.M. degrees in theology from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley and a PhD in the philosophy of science from the University of Chicago.
In his PhD dissertation, Mueller provided a translation and commentary on Marin Mersenne’s Questions Théologiques, Physiques, Morales et Mathématiques (1634), and explored how practices and concepts of early modern science were informed and influenced by practices and concepts from biblical textual criticism.
Consolmagno is from Detroit and a graduate of Beverly Hills’ Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Catholic elementary school and University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy. He obtained his Bachelor of Science undergraduate in 1974 and the following year his Master of Science graduate degree in Earth and Planetary Sciences, both from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Consolmagno recevied his PhD in Planetary Science from the University of Arizona in 1978. From 1978-80, he was a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer at the Harvard College Observatory, and from 1980-1983 continued as a postdoctorial fellow and lecturer at MIT.
In 1983 he left MIT to join the United States Peace Corps, where he served for two years in Kenya teaching physics and astronomy. On his return to the United States in 1985, he became an assistant professor of physics at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, where he taught until his entry into the Jesuit order in 1989.
He took vows as a Jesuit brother in 1991, and studied philosophy and theology at Loyola University Chicago, and physics at the University of Chicago before his assignment to the Vatican Observatory in 1993.
Consolmagno is also the curator of the Vatican meteorite collection in Castel Gandolfo, one of the largest in the world, and the new president of the Vatican Observatory Foundation in Tuscon. His research explores the connections between meteorites and asteroids, and the origin and evolution of small bodies in the solar system. In 1996, he spent six weeks collecting meteorites with a team on the blue ice of Antarctica. In 2000 he was honored by the IAU for his contributions to the study of meteorites and asteroids with the naming of asteroid 4597 Consolmagno.
An avid reader of science fiction, Consolmagno earlier this year received the Carl Sagan Award from the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society, the first clerygyman to ever win the award, for his popular writing and speaking as a planetary scientist communicating to the general public.
Consolmagno says he has no doubt that life exists elsewhere in the universe, and when we finally do discover it, the news will come as no big surprise.
“The general public is going to be, ‘Oh, I knew that. I knew it was going to be there,’” Consolmagno told Catholic News Service (CNS) prior to a presentation at a NASA and Library of Congress symposium on preparing for the discovery of life in the universe last Sept. 19.
You can watch a 1min25sec brief Catholic News Service (CNS) clip, “God and outer space” from an interview with Consolmagno on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ARjTJZVw_o#t=59
The Vatican Observatory Foundation’s first Faith and Astronomy Workshop for clergy, religious, and laypeople working in parish education, is set for Jan. 19-23 in Tucson.
You can also follow me on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/jwbarker22
soundingsjohnbarker 
I definitely think that there are other intelligence’s out there! There is this article which has logic behind it! I thought it was really cool! https://www.lds.org/new-era/1971/04/people-on-other-worlds?lang=eng
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