I Can See It Now: Alien vs. Pope, Starring Bill Murray...

Catholics Plan To Baptize the Space Aliens

from Sploid

The Catholic Truth Society - official publisher of the Vatican - has a fun new booklet the kids will love.

Awaiting a full-scale invasion of godless (but friendly) space aliens, the Vatican has published a book covering the possibilities of converting space aliens to Catholicism.

With increasing numbers of people believing not only in the possibility of intelligent life on other planets, but even claiming encounters with aliens, it is not surprising that the Catholic Church is beginning to explore what effect the discovery of sentient ETs might have on Christian theology.

The guide, written by Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno, covers these important subjects:

Is Original Sin something that affects all intelligent beings?

Is Jesus Christ's redemption valid for intelligent beings throughout the universe?

... or would other worlds have their own version of Jesus?

Would the Church send missionaries to ET planets?

Could you baptize an alien?

...or for that matter, could you ordain an alien?

The naivete of the Vatican is almost charming.

Assuming the "UFO problem" resolves with the verification of the extraterrestrial hypothesis - which is a huge assumption - what makes the Vatican so sure these beings are friendly? Regular humans have routinely attacked missionaries throughout ancient and modern history. What might a tired alien explorer do to some native preaching about baptism and Jesus? What if the alien can blow up people's brains with his thoughts?

Those few serious scientists who've studied the phenomena (such as astronomer and Silicon Valley legend Dr. Jacques Vallee) have generally concluded that whatever the UFOs and "aliens" are, they intentionally present themselves in astounding, confounding and ultimately absurd ways that likely have little resemblance to their physical reality (if there is a physical reality to the phenomena). Mathematicians who propose the concept of parallel universes supports the interdimensional visitation theory.

In other words, the "visitors" are probably the same things earlier generations considered to be demons, gods, succubi, incubi, ghosts, leprechauns, etc.

In other, other words, that "alien" you're trying to convert to Christianity may be a vengeful demon, a disinterested and possibly artificially controlled entity unable to even see you clearly, some malevolent specter amused by sexually abusing humans, the same apparition earlier religious nuts called "Satan," or the spirit of Jesus himself.

Or maybe space aliens will show up, and their only interest will be to harvest humans for food.