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      ARE OTHER PLANETS INHABITED?  

Saint Boniface (the Apostle of Germany), never failed to keep in close touch with Pope Zachary, and each was to the other a reserve of strength and inspiration.  There is among their correspondence a docuмent of especial interest to us in the light of all the conjecture there has been over the past few years on the possibility of “inhabited planets” other than our own.

Saint Boniface complained to the Pope that an Irish priest named Virgilius was disturbing men’s minds by teaching “that there was another world, other men on another planet beneath the earth, another sun, and another moon.”

          “If it is well proved that Virgilius has spoken thus,” Saint Zachary wrote, “you must convene a council and expel him from the Church.  We are addressing to this same Virgilius letters of evocation, so that he may be minutely questioned in our presence and, if found guilty of holding false doctrine, he may be sentenced to canonical punishment.”

It transpired that in the end it was not necessary for Saint Zachary to condemn Virgilius, for the priest completely yielded to the correction and counsel of his Holy Father and went on, in the light of pure and chaste theology, to sanctify himself.  He became bishop of Salzburg, and, glorious to relate, lived a life of such holiness and heroism that he was canonized by Pope Gregory IX.

 But Pope Saint Zachary did denounce in this connection, “certain heretics who maintained the existence of a race of men not descended from Adam and not ransomed by Christ.” 

It should be added, because of the controversy which later centered around it, that this condemnation of Pope Zachary’s was not intended to mean that he condemned the opinion that the world was round and that men might easily be living on the other side of it – as some have tried to make out – for both Pope Zachary and Saint Boniface were well acquainted with the fact that the earth was round and one of the Doctors of the Church, the Venerable Bede, had expressly taught so.  But he did condemn, and we have his words for it, the teaching of the existence of a race of men – on another planet – who were not, and who could not have been, descended from Adam and who were not ransomed by Christ. 

- Fr. Feeney/St. Benedict Center

"Are other planets inhabited"

That is BEGGING THE QUESTION. In other words, assuming there ARE other planets in the first place, and so I'm only asking if they're inhabited or not.

Like if I asked a man,

"What kind of men do you date?"
I would be assuming he dates men at all. That is begging the question.

Some thoughts i've heard others make on the topic of aliens.
1.  If aliens/other life exists, then they would need to be saved, just like us.
a.  Which means they are part of the mystical body of Christ, who created all life.
b.  If they are part of the mystical body, and we don't know, then the Church isn't praying for them, they aren't praying for us, etc.
c.  If we don't know of them, then who is converting them?  Who is baptizing them?  Who is instructing them in the Faith?
d.  How can God create another race of people, whom the Church is not in authority over?  Who aren't subject to the pope?
e.  How can God create another race of people, who have different rules of religion than us?  Do they have a different set of commandments?
f.  Do they have their own set of priests, their own churches, their own sacraments -- all different from what "earthlings" have?
g.  This creates 2 parts of the mystical body -- the known and unknown.  2 sets of churches.  2 different rules of God.  It makes no sense.  God does not contradict Himself.