Vatican astronomers have reportedly been working towards locating extraterrestrial life. Earlier in March, the Vatican Observatory cosponsored a major conference on extraterrestrial life that brought together 200 of the leading astrobiologists in the world. One of the organizers stated that one of the goals of the conference was to figure out “how we can find life among the stars within the next two decades.” Some high profile Vatican astronomers seem quite confident that “something” is out there. The question that comes to mind is why this level of interest from the Vatican: Is there something they know that the general public isn’t aware of? Why are they taking a lead role in areas that are not within the traditional Catholic scope or domain?
José Gabriel Funes, an Argentine Jesuit priest and astronomer, and the current director of the Vatican Observatory says there is no conflict between believing in God and in the possibility of extraterrestrial civilizations perhaps more evolved than humans: “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.
Why can’t we speak of a ‘brother extraterrestrial’? It would still be part of creation… There could be other beings “who remained in full friendship with their creator.” Another prominent Vatican astronomer, Guy Consolmagno, has publicly suggested that aliens could actually be the “saviors of humankind”.
Truth Wins recently reported the NASA viewpoint of Vatican interest from their website description: Motivated by the rapidly increasing number of known Earth-sized planets, the increasing range of extreme conditions in which life on Earth can persist, and the progress toward a technology that will ultimately enable the search for life on exoplanets, the Vatican Observatory and the Steward Observatory announce a major conference entitled The Search for Life Beyond the Solar System: Exoplanets, Biosignatures & Instruments. The goal of the conference is to bring together the interdisciplinary community required to address this multi-faceted challenge: experts on exoplanet observations, early and extreme life on Earth, atmospheric Biosignatures and planet-finding telescopes.
Truth Wins also reports researcher Tom Horn saying that “ What they (the Vatican astronomers) are saying now is that they [aliens] are coming here and they’re going to baptize us into their faith and it is going to require us to make changes to our knowledge, to our understanding, of the Gospel. In fact, some of their deepest theologians have said, “Perhaps everything we think we know about the Gospel is going to have to be thrown out.” Which is quite an alarming statement, given the Biblical warnings given by the Apostle Paul to the Galatians: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed (Galatians 1:8,9).
Tom Horn further asks: “Could it be that the world is far hungrier than I thought to usher in the Man of Sin? The ultimate “fixer” of our nations? And furthermore, would it ever truly be in God’s will for the human race to transcend to some higher level where we no longer need His direct intervention through personal relationship and prayer, but the intervention of another superior being? These alien contact agendas would not surprise me if coming only from the scientific community, but from a body of people whose primary focus and claim is to be God-fearing?”
Tom also quotes the works of select individuals within the Roman Catholic church who perpetuate the idea that our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is a descendant of alien life and that Mary’s virgin birth was a direct result of an alien abduction scenario. Perhaps a suggestion that Jesus Christ was a descendant of the Nephilim; however irrespective of the intended suggestion or conclusion, these ideas are clearly blasphemous and heretical – worst of all, coming from supposed representatives of Biblical doctrine and truth.
Further, in an article for openminds.tv about a year back, Jason McClellan wrote: “ A new book claims that Vatican astronomers are looking for extraterrestrials. And they are using LUCIFER to do it. Although it shares the same name as Christianity’s fallen angel and the personification of evil, LUCIFER is an instrument attached to a telescope.
As Popular Science explains, LUCIFER is an acronym for the instruments lengthy title, “Large Binocular Telescope Near-infrared Utility with Camera and Integral Field Unit for Extragalactic Research.” This instrument is attached to the University of Arizona’s Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) located on Mt. Graham in south eastern Arizona. The Vatican-owned Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT) is right next door.” Against this backdrop readiness to accept extra-Biblical sources of information from “aliens” and to even “throw out the gospel”- how likely is the coincidence that the telescope would accidentally be acronymed “LUCIFER?”
Michael Snyder raises the questions: “So if aliens showed up and wanted to show us a “new way”, would society be willing to accept it?….what would happen someday if “aliens” showed up and claimed that they seeded life on this planet, guided our evolution and are now here to lead us into a new golden age? And what would happen if the Catholic Church gave those aliens their stamp of approval?”
Perhaps the Vatican astronomers should start looking at the Bible first for those answers. 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 would be a good starting point:
Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Read more at http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/2014/April01/012.html#eIXdwrv7r12bv06X.99
