Vatican scientist says belief in God and aliens is OK
By Philip PullellaWed May 14, 5:02 AM ET
The Vatican's chief astronomer says there is no conflict between believing
in God and in the possibility of "extraterrestrial brothers" perhaps more
evolved than humans.
"In my opinion this possibility (of life on other planets) exists," said
Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, a 45-year-old Jesuit priest who is head of the
Vatican Observatory and a scientific adviser to Pope Benedict.
"How can we exclude that life has developed elsewhere," he told the
Vatican
newspaper L'Osservatore Romano in an interview in its Tuesday-Wednesday
edition, explaining that the large number of galaxies with their own
planets
made this possible.
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," he 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," he said.
"Why can't we speak of a 'brother extraterrestrial'? It would still be
part
of creation," he said.
Funes, who runs the observatory which 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.
THE "BIG BANG"?
Christians have sometimes been at odds with scientists over whether the
Bible should be read literally and issues such as creationism versus
evolution have been hotly debated for decades.
The Inquisition condemned astronomer Galileo in the 17th century for
insisting that the earth revolved around the sun. The Catholic Church did
not rehabilitate him until 1992.
Funes said dialogue between faith and science could be improved if
scientists learned more about the Bible and the Church kept more up to
date
with scientific progress.
Funes, an Argentine, 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 a creator. "God
is
the creator. There is a sense to creation. We are not children of an
accident ...," he said.
"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," he said.
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