Vatican ponders extraterrestrials

Questions about extra-terrestrial life are "very interesting and deserve serious consideration" the Vatican said yesterday, as one of its officials presented a summary of its first conference on astrobiology.

Speaking at the conclusion of a study week, organised by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Vatican Observatory, Father Jose Funes explained why the Vatican had turned its attention to the subject.

"Although astrobiology is an emerging field and still a developing subject, the questions of life's origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very interesting and deserve serious consideration. These questions offer many philosophical and theological implications".

Funes has previously said there is no clash between believing in Catholic doctrine and believing in the possibility of alien life.

In an interview published last year with L'Osservatore Romano he said: "I think there isn't [a contradiction]. Just as there is a multiplicity of creatures over the earth, so there could be other beings, even intelligent [beings], created by God."

"This is not in contradiction with our faith, because we cannot establish limits to God's creative freedom. To say it with St Francis, if we can consider some earthly creatures as 'brothers' or 'sisters', why could we not speak of a 'brother alien'? He would also belong to the creation."

Not everyone agrees. Paul Davies, who was one of the speakers at the Vatican event, told the Washington Post: "I think the discovery of a second genesis would be of enormous spiritual significance."

The theoretical physicist and cosmologist from Arizona State University added: "The real threat would come from the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence, because if there are beings elsewhere in the universe, then Christians, they're in this horrible bind."

"They believe that God became incarnate in the form of Jesus Christ in order to save humankind, not dolphins or chimpanzees or little green men on other planets."