Vatican chief astronomer Father Jose Gabriel Funes in a long interview with the L’Osservatore Romano newspaper recently made news by saying there is a certain possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, and that such notion “doesn’t contradict our faith.”

“How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere? Just as we consider earthly creatures as ‘a brother,’ and ‘sister,’ why should we not talk about an ‘extraterrestrial brother’? It would still be part of creation,” he said.

The statements by Funes are the latest in a string of recent comments by Vatican astronomers confirming a belief that discovery may be made in the near future of alien life, including intelligent life, and that this discovery would not unhinge the doctrine of Christ.

In 2005, another Vatican astronomer, Guy Consolmagno, tackled this subject in a 50-page booklet, Intelligent Life in the Universe, in which he concluded that chances are better than not that mankind is facing a future discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence. Approximately 12 years ago Monsignor Corrado Balducci made similar news when he said E.T.s were actually already interacting with Earth, and that some of the Vatican’s leaders were aware of it.

Before his death in 1999, maverick Catholic theologian Father Malachi Martin hinted at such more than once. In 1997, while on Coast to Coast AM radio, Art Bell asked him why the Vatican was heavily invested in the study of deep space at Mount Graham Observatory in southeastern Arizona. As a retired professor of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Father Martin was uniquely qualified to hold in secret, information pertaining to the Vatican’s Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT) project at the Mount Graham International Observatory (MGIO). Martin’s answer ignited a firestorm of interest among Christian and secular UFOlogists when he said, “Because the mentality… amongst those who [are] at the… highest levels of Vatican administration and geopolitics, know that, now, knowledge of what’s going on in space, and what’s approaching us, could be of great importance in the next decade, or two.”