Pope Benedict, phone home!

Oh, Pope Benedict. You are a funny guy. Thanks for making my job here at WTH that much easier!! The things that come out of the Vatican...priceless!! In the past they've given us funnies like exorcism, witch hunts, the Spanish Inquisition, a handful of wars & Crusades, anti-scientific polemics, really messed up views about astronomy, handy torture devices, stigmata, and a long list of banned books. The latest?

The Vatican officially says it's okay to believe in aliens. As the Jesuit Director of the Vatican Observatory, Jose Gabriel Funes (as is fun - es?...because lo es muy divertido!), puts it oh-so-succinctly: "Just as we consider earthly creatures as 'a brother,' and 'sister,' why should we not talk about an extraterrestrial brother?" Just to clarify, in case you were confused, "aliens would still be God's creatures."

Ok. I'm not laughing about the notion of extraterrestrial life. The universe seems awful big to house only us... But crikey! Per the Vatican, we're not allowed to believe in.....evolution, abortion, Sinead O'Connor or Madonna, birth control, Martin Luther and his pesky Protestantism, animals having souls, Buddhism, homosexuality, and divorce....but ET and his amigos are entirely hunky dory with His Holiness?

In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti...