OUT THERE

 Would the Catholic Church baptise aliens? Would they go to heaven? Or hell? Where the hell is heaven? Or hell? Aren't aliens already 'up there'?

I read this article today:

ALIEN LIFE LOOKS MORE AND MORE LIKELY. CATHOLICS ARE READY 

The writer of the above article suggests that Catholic thought is open and embracing of the possible existence of alien beings and life forms.

"From Origen in the third century to Thomas Aquinas in the 13th to the Renaissance thinkers of the 15th and 16th centuries, there is already a robust set of theological reflections on a host of questions that nonhuman persons on other planets produce.

Did Jesus die for them too? Or would they need their own Incarnation and savior? Or maybe they didn’t have a primeval original sin that disordered their nature and environment and therefore wouldn’t have the “happy fault” that produced our particular history of salvation? Are they governed by our sense of right and wrong or would it be quite different? Or would they be capable of sinning at all?

........ We ended up talking a lot about aliens. He agreed with me that the Catholic intellectual tradition would have absolutely zero problem with the idea of intelligent life — that is, substances of a rational nature (the classic definition of a “person” in my field) — on other planets."

This was stimulated by the recent revelations in USA of possible contacts by airforce planes with flying machines that cannot have originated on earth. There has been a lot of discussion about the possibility of extra terrestrial intelligent life.

OK, I'm willing to embrace it (the idea of it) if true but I do wonder what Robert and the Catholic Church would really do.

This is the institution remember that only begrudgingly recognises women as being intelligent beings and won't allow them to take part in their bizarre and arcane rituals.

It is the institution that forbids contraception, abortion, and sexual relations outside of marriage (yet condones or at least turns a blind eye to illegal and immoral behaviour from their priests, nuns and brothers).

It is the institution that refuses to accept homosexual and transgender people as being remotely normal and won't invite them into their bizarre and arcane rituals including baptism, First Holy Communion, Confirmation, Penance, Extreme Unction and marriage.

If there ever does prove to be intelligent alien life forms I really hope that they turn out to be parthenogenesic and have the external characteristics of being female, gay and transgender combined.

They could therefore say to any Catholic missionaries: 

"Why don't you go fuck yourselves?

 I do!"

IN THE BEGINNING

 EMERSON LAKE AND PALMER - FROM THE BEGINNING

Well, the more observant of you will have noticed that the title of that beautiful song was 'From the beginning' not 'In the beginning.'

Never mind, I like it.

I also like this:

THE BIBLE - RICKY GERVAIS

"It's all very clear - we were meant to be here  ....." lyric from From the beginning."

OK?

Moving on then, has anyone in this blogging community watched the Netflix documentary The Keepers?

It's about the murder of a nun in Baltimore in 1969 and the shocking way that the Catholic Church attempted to cover up and suppress possible evidence and hid one of the main suspects a pedophile priest.

"The Archdiocese of Baltimore declined when asked by Netflix producers to comment on sexual misconduct allegations within the church. Later, the Archdiocese responded to the series by adding a FAQ page to its website, in which it stated allegations that the archdiocese knew of (Father) Maskell's sexual abuse prior to 1992 were false speculation. "- Wikipedia.