November 12, 9:26 AM
Honolulu Exopolitics ExaminerMichael Salla, Ph.D.
Pope Benedict gives a blessing at Vatican City. Photo: AP
The
Vatican has just completed a five day conference on astrobiology where
scientists convened to discuss the detection and implications of
extraterrestrial life. A major driving force behind the conference was
the Director of the Vatican Observatory, the Jesuit priest Father
Gabriel Funes. In May 2008, Funes gave an interview to the Vatican’s
L’Osservatore Romano newspaper saying that the existence of intelligent
extraterrestrials posed no problems to Catholic theology. The
conference itself was officially convened by the Vatican's Pontifical
Academy of Sciences, chaired by its religious leader Bishop Marcelo
Sanchez Sorondo, and was held on private Vatican grounds. Together with
Funes’ 2008 interview and subsequent public comments by him, the
conference demonstrates a welcome openness by the Vatican on the
possibility and implications of extraterrestrial life. The Vatican’s
openness to discussion of extraterrestrial life is no accident. It is
part of an openness policy secretly adopted by the United Nations in
February 2008. In fact, the Vatican is playing a leading role in
preparing the world for extraterrestrial disclosure.
