I remember a couple of years ago the Vatican made a curious announcement about the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Clearly,the Roman Catholic Church was getting worried that any discovery of evidence of life on other planets would undermine its authority on Earth. It wanted to head off the impact of that potentially devastating discovery even before it happened.
"Just as there is a multiplicity of creatures on Earth, there can be other beings, even intelligent, created by God," said the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Vatican's chief astronomer and scientific adviser to Pope Benedict.
"This is not in contrast with our faith because we can't put limits on God's creative freedom," Funes declared, writing in the Vatican newspaper, L'Obsservatore Romano, in 2008.