Good post, can you give me the reference for the Church condemnation?
Cassini posted here on this:
https://www.cathinfo.com/fighting-errors-in-the-modern-world/israel-'trump-knows-aliens-exist'/msg725234/#msg725234
Reply #25, Dec. 13, 2020:
Catholics today should know that the heresy of aliens has long been condemned by the Church. It is not out of the question that demons will present themselves as aliens in order to undermine Catholicism. Here are some examples of early Catholic teaching on the aliens.
In 748AD Pope Zachary I declared heretical the belief that stars were suns with similar worlds like Earth and that on these planets are other intelligent beings. In 1459 Pope Pius II condemned the doctrine ‘that God created another world than this one.’
When the ex nihilo creation of Genesis was abandoned and the endless Big Bang evolutionary ‘creation’ theology took over, it compromised the dogma of ‘created things’ as certain witness to His existence and that mankind was special, with all life placed on a self-sufficient Earth at the very centre of the universe. Our Earth is now recast as a mere planet. If the Earth is an evolved planet with evolved life then why couldn’t other evolved planets evolve life, even intelligent life like mankind? If such life exists elsewhere one could then ask did all that God applied to human beings also pertain to aliens. This in turn leads to the idea of other Christs, another heresy long condemned by the Church.
Long forgotten now are all the other Pythagorean heresies condemned by the Fathers over the first three centuries of the Catholic Church; an era recalled in a new book researched and written by Professor Alberto. A. Martinez.[1] In this excellent detailed and referenced book, Martinez tells us ‘St Hippolytus [170-235AD, a martyred Christian theologian] ridiculed the doctrine of infinitely many suns, moons and worlds, some inhabited.’ The Professor tells us: ‘around 260CE Pope Dionysus of Alexandria wrote a tract against the Epicureans mainly to criticize their theory that all things were composed of atoms without divine Providence.’ Martinez explains this was directed against the [Big Bang] theory that atoms clash and combine by chance ‘and thus gradually form this world and all objects in it; and more, that they construct infinite worlds.’ The book also tells us there were many Church Fathers who condemned the claim that there are many worlds like ours. He records that ‘in 384CE’ Philaster, Bishop of Brescia condemned the ‘heresy that says worlds are infinite and innumerable…whereas Scripture says that the world is one and that it teaches us that it is one.’ In 402 St Jerome complained that one of the most heretical claims of all was that ‘worlds are innumerable.’ St. Augustine even composed a list of 88 such heresies; the 77th was that ‘worlds are innumerable.’
‘Other theologians too cited this heresy for centuries. They explained the problem: “we cannot assert that there exist two or many worlds, since neither do we assert two or many Christs [the only begotten son]”’ --- Prof. A. A. Martinez.
In 1600 Bruno was burned at the stake for spreading such beliefs, but by 2009 the Vatican was hosting a conference with scientists, astronomers and religious leaders discussing the implications for religion and human consciousness if the discovery of extraterrestrial life is found. One statement was that aliens would be part of God’s Creation and be regarded as our ‘extraterrestrial brothers.’ With Rome now entertaining what was long condemned as heresy, are we to accept we could find ourselves sharing Heaven with aliens? This leads us back to a modern version of another old heresy condemned in 748 AD, the existence of the ‘Antipodes,’ intelligent beings supposedly living beyond the reach of the Church, but this time in the form of extra-terrestrials from ‘other worlds.’
‘Father Funes described the discovery as ‘great news.’ Writing in the Vatican’s daily newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, he said: ‘Our galaxy contains more than a hundred billion stars. ‘Considering the number of exoplanets discovered, it seems that the vast majority of stars in our galaxy, at least potentially, can have planets where life could develop.’ He said that if there is intelligent life found on another planet, he does not see it as a contradiction to the Christian faith. He said: ‘The Bible is not a scientific book. If we look for scientific responses to our questions in the Bible, we are making a mistake. It is just over 380 years since the Catholic Church condemned Galileo for arguing that the Earth was not the centre of the universe. But it seems the Vatican has relaxed its view of mankind’s place in the cosmos and even believes there may be intelligent alien life out there. Astronomers at the Vatican Observatory, which has been studying the heavens since 1582, have said discoveries of new Earth like planets have strengthened their belief that there could be life on other planets.’ ---Mailonline, 8th Feb, 2018.
In 2014, the Christian Post reported that the Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno president of the Vatican Observatory, proposed the eventual discovery of alien life forms after Pope Francis (2013-), mouthing about alien life forms during Mass at the Vatican, used the analogy that even Martians, should they ever visit Earth, would be welcome to be baptised. Baptism of course is a sacrament that erases Original Sin inherited only by all the descendants of Adam and Eve. Why then would a pope offer to baptise a Martian? To subject this sacrament to science-fiction and heresy shows us a rotten fruit of the Galilean reformation
[1] Alberto A. Martinez: Burned Alive, Reaktion Books, London, 2018, p.61
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