{"id":677,"date":"2008-05-14T14:41:56","date_gmt":"2008-05-14T14:41:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2008\/05\/vatican-astronomer-suggests-al.php"},"modified":"2008-05-14T14:41:56","modified_gmt":"2008-05-14T14:41:56","slug":"vatican-astronomer-suggests-al","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/05\/vatican-astronomer-suggests-al","title":{"rendered":"Vatican Astronomer Suggests Aliens Do Not Need Salvation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Francis X. Rocca<br \/>\nReligion News Service<\/strong><br \/>\nVATICAN CITY (RNS) Intelligent life may exist on other planets and has no need of redemption through Jesus Christ, the Vatican&#8217;s top astronomer said.<br \/>\nThe Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory, was quoted in the Wednesday (May 14) edition of the official Vatican newspaper L&#8217;Osservatore Romano.<br \/>\nThe interview appeared under the headline: &#8220;The extraterrestrial is my brother.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;Just as a multiplicity of creatures exists on the Earth, so there could be other creatures, even intelligent ones, created by God,&#8221; the Argentine Jesuit said. &#8220;This does not conflict with our faith, because we cannot set limits on the creative liberty of God.&#8221;<br \/>\nAccording to Funes, such creatures may never have fallen into sin, and so have no need of salvation through Christianity.<br \/>\n&#8220;It is not a given that they have need of redemption,&#8221; he said.<br \/>\n&#8220;They may have remained in full friendship with their Creator.&#8221;<br \/>\nAsked about the possibility of redemption for sinful extraterrestrials, Funes said he was &#8220;sure that even they, in some way, would have the possibility of enjoying the mercy of God.&#8221;<br \/>\nElsewhere in the interview, Funes argued that the &#8220;big bang&#8221; theory of the universe&#8217;s origins does not conflict with the biblical account of creation.<br \/>\nFunes also said that the Catholic Church had &#8220;recognized its errors&#8221; in its treatment of the 17th-century astronomer Galileo Galilei, who was convicted by the Inquisition for teaching that the earth revolves around the sun.<br \/>\n<em>Copyright 2008 Religion News Service.  All rights reserved.  No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Francis X. Rocca Religion News Service VATICAN CITY (RNS) Intelligent life may exist on other planets and has no need of redemption through Jesus Christ, the Vatican&#8217;s top astronomer said. The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory, was quoted in the Wednesday (May 14) edition of the official Vatican newspaper L&#8217;Osservatore&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Vatican Astronomer Suggests Aliens Do Not Need Salvation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/05\/vatican-astronomer-suggests-al\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Vatican Astronomer Suggests Aliens Do Not Need Salvation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Francis X. Rocca Religion News Service VATICAN CITY (RNS) Intelligent life may exist on other planets and has no need of redemption through Jesus Christ, the Vatican&#8217;s top astronomer said. The Rev. 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Rocca Religion News Service VATICAN CITY (RNS) Intelligent life may exist on other planets and has no need of redemption through Jesus Christ, the Vatican&#8217;s top astronomer said. The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory, was quoted in the Wednesday (May 14) edition of the official Vatican newspaper L&#8217;Osservatore&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/05\/vatican-astronomer-suggests-al","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2008-05-14T14:41:56+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/05\/vatican-astronomer-suggests-al","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/05\/vatican-astronomer-suggests-al","name":"Vatican Astronomer Suggests Aliens Do Not Need Salvation","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-05-14T14:41:56+00:00","dateModified":"2008-05-14T14:41:56+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/05\/vatican-astronomer-suggests-al#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/05\/vatican-astronomer-suggests-al"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/05\/vatican-astronomer-suggests-al#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Vatican Astronomer Suggests Aliens Do Not Need Salvation"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. From fashion to faith and the journey isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over yet\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/nsymmonds"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}