Is a Space Pope next...?

Word from the Vatican is that it's cool to believe in aliens. Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, who's the director of the Vatican Observatory, recently noted that believe in his wacky sky deity is does not preclude the existence of life on other planets and that Catholics can believe in aliens without the threat of everlasting torment in hell. He said that aliens would all be "God's creatures" too. Funes said that ruling out the existence of aliens would be equivalent to "putting limits" on God.

And on the eight day, God created Spacemen.

Now, it's fair enough to say that their might be aliens out there. Heck, I'm no UFO True Believer™, but as far as some form of life existing somewhere in the universe, the statistics seem to favor it. That being said, it's just hilarious to me watching the Church flail around reaching for some sort of modern context for itself. I'm waiting for a papal pronouncement about Sasquatch next.

New Sins From The Vatican

Reuters is reporting that Vatican has unveiled a list of new sins for Catholics to begin feeling guilty about as quickly as possible. Among them are genetic manipulation, pollution, drug trafficking, and downloading copies of other people's video game saves off of GameFaqs so as to play Sonic the Hedgehog in Smash Bros. Brawl without unlocking him yourself. Well, the last one is an exaggeration, but the day is coming.

As usual, religious authorities are quick to say self-evident things (i.e. "destroying the planet might be bad") and then claim that they are forging ahead into new moral territory. Luckily they just as quickly shoot themselves in the foot by bemoaning such things as medical research.

The Vatican keeps talking, but how many people are still listening...?