UFO from Biblical and Catholic View

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Nehemiah1 said:
From a catholic christian and biblical view, UFOs are a demonic deception by fake aliens that are demons?
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Neither. There is nothing in the Bible about aliens and the Catholic Church has no position on aliens.
 
Nehemiah1 said:
From a catholic christian and biblical view, UFOs are a demonic deception by fake aliens that are demons?
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No. Why would you think that?

From the website of the Vatican Observatory:
Would the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence – aliens – affect your faith?

The first and most important fact we have to confront in the whole question of “extraterrestrial intelligence” is this: we don’t know. Of all the planets we’ve found orbiting other stars, it’s not clear if any of them are suitable places for life as we know it. On none of them, nor indeed anywhere closer to us in our own Sun’s system of planets, have we ever found evidence that completely, uncontrovertibly, proves life originated in some place other that just here on Earth. As far as we know for sure, we could be alone.

Fr. Ernan McMullin, a philosophy professor at Notre Dame with a background in physics, has discussed the possible impact on Christian theology of discovering extraterrestrials, and he concludes only that it would certainly inspire theologians to develop new ways of thinking about topics like original sin, the immortality of the soul, and the meaning of Christ’s redemptive act. But, as he points out, there is already a voluminous literature, and hardly a consensus, on these points among theologians even today, without ETs!

Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti, an astronomer and Opus Dei priest who teaches theology at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, comes to the same conclusion. He has written a lengthy entry on Extraterrestrial Life in the Dizionario Interdisciplinare di Scienza e Fede (The Interdisciplinary Dictionary of Science and Faith, of which he was an editor). But at the end, he concludes by saying (in my translation of his Italian), “the last word on the question of extraterrestrial life will not come from theology, but science. The existence of intelligent life on planets other than the Earth neither rules in, nor rules out, any theological principle. Theologians, like the rest of the human race, will just have to wait and see.”

The mere possibility of intelligent life elsewhere puts a human (or at least, human-like) face on the far better established astronomical observation of the enormity of our universe. For us Catholics, the thoughts that come from contemplating this question, in the absence of any firm answers, should lead us to focus on realizing God’s greatness and His special love for us.
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You might enjoy listening to the podcast “Jimmy Akins’ Mysterious World”. Lots of discussion about UFOs, what is the meaning of these sightings, what does it mean in terms of Catholic teaching if they were real, etc.
He is a Catholic apologist here at Catholic Answers, and he explores lots of “paranormal” topics here:

 
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Where do you get this stuff?

The Catholic Church does not take an official position on “UFOs”.
Most of which are likely either optical illusions or people’s imagination or some sort of military or private aircraft anyway.

The Bible says nothing about UFOs.
 
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St. Antony of the Desert is recorded in his biography by St. Athnanasius, as having an encounter with a a Demon in a dish !

Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich claimed in her visions, there were molds and fungi growing on other planets in our system. Things, about moving about in the shadows on our moon. And she claimed that some of the fallen Angels had a moment of repentance, and now move about the heavenly spheres!

There is certainly the possibility of other life out there.
 
Serpent_of_Paradise said:
St. Antony of the Desert is recorded in his biography by St. Athnanasius, as having an encounter with a a Demon in a dish !

Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich claimed in her visions, there were molds and fungi growing on other planets in our system. Things, about moving about in the shadows on our moon. And she claimed that some of the fallen Angels had a moment of repentance, and now move about the heavenly spheres!

There is certainly the possibility of other life out there.
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Do not use private revelations as evidence of anything. Anne Emmerich revelations are not approved by the Church.
 
Montrose said:
Anne Emmerich revelations are not approved by the Church.
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Actually, they are approved because she is beatified.
The problem is, because she had a transcriber who “embellished” her visions in writing them down, we can’t be sure how much actually came from her and how much was added. So the written records of her visions are unreliable.

If we knew for sure which parts came from her, those parts would be automatically approved.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
Actually, they are approved because she is beatified.
The problem is, because she had a transcriber who “embellished” her visions in writing them down, we can’t be sure how much actually came from her and how much was added. So the written records of her visions are unreliable.

If we knew for sure which parts came from her, those parts would be automatically approved.
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Sorry but they are not approved.

Private revelations, just like stigmata, are not given any consideration in the beatification process.
 
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No, we got confirmation of organic molecules that may be the result of life on Venus. Do not state facts not in evidence.
 
Montrose said:
Private revelations, just like stigmata, are not given any consideration in the beatification process.
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No, that’s not true. Written private revelations are very much considered in the beatification process; they can actually keep a person from being beatified, as is said to have happened with Ven. Mary of Agreda, and probably other persons with a cause. All writings by a saint, including any private revelations they wrote down, are examined during the sainthood process. Obviously the Church does not want saints who claimed to see Mary or Jesus or St. Anthony or whoever saying all kinds of things that in their opinion, didn’t comport with Church teaching.

In the specific case of Blessed Anne Emmerich, the Vatican is said to have not considered her alleged writings because of her transcriber, Clemens Brentano, being strongly suspected of writing them. Due to the problem of authenticity of the writings, and the serious doubt that they even came from her, they were not considered in her beatification, and thus don’t have the usual Church approval that we would ascribe to private revelations to a beatified person.

I would suggest that if you want to discuss this further, please make a new thread and cite sources in support of your contention that private revelations are not considered in any beatification process (not just specifically in the case of Anne Emmerich), so we don’t derail the UFO thread.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
I would suggest that if you want to discuss this further, please make a new thread and cite sources in support of your contention that private revelations are not considered in any beatification process (not just specifically in the case of Anne Emmerich), so we don’t derail the UFO thread.
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I don’t have to prove a negative. If they are taken into consideration I stand happy to be corrected. Please show me a Church document that states they are considered in the process.

If they are considered I would assume that any process for canonization would never proceed further if private revelations are not approved. In the case of Anne Emmerich the Church considers the writings could be false.
Personally I don’t believe her alleged revelations.
 
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The secular world hypes the possibility of life outside of earth not from a desire to express the unbounded glory of God, but just the opposite - the modern world largely believes that life can spontaneously emerge on other planets just because of a correct mix of certain elements and conditions.

In this regard, I do believe that much of the scientific community’s fascination with life outside of earth is misguided, naive, and erroneous. Those who clamor for any sign of life outside of earth with the sole purpose of wanting to use that information to deny the sacredness of life on earth and human life in particular have evil intentions.
 
Montrose said:
I don’t have to prove a negative. If they are taken into consideration I stand happy to be corrected. Please show me a Church document that states they are considered in the process.

If they are considered I would assume that any process for canonization would never proceed further if private revelations are not approved. In the case of Anne Emmerich the Church considers the writings could be false.
Personally I don’t believe her alleged revelations.
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I do not like that we are derailing the thread. However, I will answer again.

I have already explained the situation with Anne Emmerich. I will explain again: Her alleged “Private Revelations” were likely not written by her, but by Clemens Brentano, and on that basis, the Vatican excluded them from consideration during her beatification cause, which is not the norm. We have many past threads on this as it comes up every time someone cites an alleged revelation of Anne Emmerich, usually regarding the Three Days of Darkness, and says “But she’s beatified so it must be approved!” so then we have to go over the whole thing again.

EWTN’s apologist Colin Donovan explained this exclusion of her alleged “private revelations” in an article here that was previously on EWTN website and is now preserved on archive.org (EWTN revamped its website recently):

https://web.archive.org/web/20190705214251/https://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/emmerich.htm

It would appear you are right to not believe her “alleged revelations” because they have been embellished by the transcriber to the point where we have no idea how much of what he wrote down was actually her revelations and how much he wrote himself. Therefore, it’s unreliable information in her case. However, as Donovan indicates, the alleged written private revelations of holy people are certainly considered during their beatification cause. In Anne Emmerich’s case the decision was made to exclude it because it wasn’t her writing.

(continued next post due to character limits)
 
Setting aside the case of Anne Emmerich, where the writings in question were determined to be corrupted/ not her own, it is a normal practice during the sainthood cause for the Vatican to examine the Servant of God’s entire life and all of their public and private writings. This includes all private revelations that they have written down. If the person’s cause is allowed to proceed to beatification, then the Vatican has in doing that pronounced that the person lived a good and holy life and that their writings, including any written private revelations, were thoroughly examined at the Vatican level and found to be free of any error in faith and morals and permissible to be read by the faithful. This constitutes an approval of the private revelation, so Catholics are permitted to read it and believe it. The Church does NOT require that any Catholic believe any private revelation, so Catholics are also free to reject the private revelations of St. Teresa of Avila or St. Bridget or any saint they wish.

If private revelations to Blesseds and Saints weren’t considered approved by the Church, we couldn’t even discuss them on here because the forum forbids posting any material from unapproved private revelations. Obviously this is not the case as we discuss them all the time.

The Church’s separate process for approving apparitions outside of the sainthood process typically involves visionaries who are not saints or blesseds, are often ordinary people who did not live lives of heroic virtue, and in many cases are still living while the Church is performing the inquiry.

I will be stepping off this thread now as I think I have thoroughly discussed this subject to the point of repeating myself, and like I said it’s derailing the UFO thread.
I agree that private revelations (which Catholics are not required to believe) should not be cited to prove a point about UFOs or anything else.
I also agree that the alleged revelations of Blessed Anne Emmerich are not credible (due to the likelihood they were written by someone else) and in her case were clearly not considered for her beatification.
However, it is wrong to say that private revelations to Blesseds and Saints in general are not approved by the Church, because aside from the unusual cases such as Blessed Anne Emmerich, they are indeed approved through the normal course of the sainthood process.
 
Surprisingly, a couple of our Orthodox elders have talked recently about UFO’s. While he is not a saint (and may be completely wrong!) Father Seraphim Rose said in his book “Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future”:

“In a recent bibliography of UFO phenomena prepared by the Library of Congress for the United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the introduction states that “Many of the UFO reports now being published in the popular press recount alleged incidents that are strikingly similar to demonic possession and psychic phenomena which have long been known to theologians and parapsychologists.”
(Citation: Lynn G. Catoe, UFOs and Related Subjects: An Annotated Bibliography, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1969)

Fr. Seraphim concludes:

“UFO encounters are but a contemporary form of an occult phenomenon which has existed throughout the centuries. Men have abandoned Christianity and look for “saviors” from outer space, and therefore the phenomenon supplies images of spacecraft and space beings.”
 
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