Posted on 05/13/2014 9:35:11 AM PDT by marthemaria
Pope Francis would absolutely baptize an alien from Mars, if one showed up at the Vatican and asked for it. During his weekly homily on Monday, Franics said that aliens — which he imagines could be "Green, with that long nose and big ears, just like children paint them" — should be baptized just like anyone else who asks for it, because it's not up to any human to decide who should receive the Holy Spirit.
In other words: if God prompts some Martians to come to Earth, find the Pope, and say "we want in on this Catholicism thing." The pope would probably say "OK. cool." But probably in Latin.
Francis laid out the hypothetical situation as part of a discussion of the early Church's baptizing of Gentiles. Basically, the earliest Church contained some tension over whether there was any difference between the very early Jewish followers of Christ, and Gentiles who converted from paganism to Christianity, who would be considered "unclean" by the standards of Jewish law. Peter eventually persuades his followers that everyone is open to becoming Christian by saying, "If then God gave them the same gift He gave to us when we came to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to be able to hinder God?"
So here's how Francis tried to illustrate that point on Monday, with a much more modern example:
That was unthinkable. If – for example - tomorrow an expedition of Martians came, and some of them came to us, here... Martians, right? Green, with that long nose and big ears, just like children paint them... And one says, 'But I want to be baptized!' What would happen?"
What would happen? They'd get baptized, that's what would happen. He goes on:
"When the Lord shows us the way, who are we to say, 'No, Lord, it is not prudent! No, lets do it this way'... Who are we to close doors? In the early Church, even today, there is the ministry of the ostiary [usher]. And what did the ostiary do? He opened the door, received the people, allowed them to pass. But it was never the ministry of the closed door, never."
The Vatican's astronomer — the same one who dismissed 'Intelligent Design' as 'bad theology' — said in 2010 that he'd baptize an alien because "any entity – no matter how many tentacles it has – has a soul." But, again, only if they request it. So glad that's settled. Now all we have to do is wait.
You both have answered in a similar manner and in a way I think Is not relevant to the premise.
Obviously we’d be talking about human type beings created in God’s image.
The premise is they asked to be baptized.
I don’t think a goat would be asking that.
Neither do I…and honestly I doubt the Pope sees it happening either. Remember that just as with previous popes and Christ himself, the doubters and evildoers are always looking for ways to “trip him up” when it comes to matters of Catholic doctrine. The church teaches it will not deny baptism to anyone who seeks it, even I suppose including little green men from mars….should they desire it.
Does that mean that those people that do not recognize a need for salvation and humbly ask for baptism, do not have souls?
Yep, this is pretty dumb talk,
I suspect this has to do with immigrants and illegal immigrants and race and not about aliens from space.
Next he will be saying that he would tell us to put poor space aliens on welfare and food stamps.
Calling occupants of interplanetary craft.
Well, if Coco the language using Gorilla asked, should she be baptized too, by The Pope?
What about a talking ass?
Not at all.
All sergeants are soldiers, but not all soldiers are sergeants.
Is this some sort of joke? Christ was both fully man and fully God. Man = human. And he died for humans.
Now, I suppose if martians were human beings like us, we could treat them sort of like “found” humans as we discovered them in the americas many centuries ago. But the hypothetical is absurd on the face of it. Jesus is about earth, regarding salvation. And baptism is about salvation.
According to above he calls space aliens ‘green humans’,.
Definitely about race and immigration.
Also reminds me of two Lost in Space episodes about that green alien gal following Dr Smith around causing him trouble,
in the first one (in black and white) she ate up all their fuel.
But if there were to be aliens, God is God in their world as well.
A truly bizarre statement. Do they baptize dogs now?
At least they didn’t ask “boxers or briefs?”
Don’t know how that relates, but it sounds good. thanx
The conflation of soul and spirit serves to keep the confusion alive. The soul is not the same as the spirit. It is the spirit which gives spiritual discernment to the behavior mechanism, the soul. If the devil asks for baptism, THEN I could see a controversy. But to move the goalposts the way this absurd question does, well, it makes a mockery of The Grace of God in Christ. If there is no spirit int he soul of aliens, ought we pray that God breathe into them also a spirit of life for the biologically alive soul?
A childrens’ book, is how you back that up?
The Big Question! - Obviously these aliens are very rich to afford interstellar travel. Would the Pope call on the Aliens to redistribute wealth to the poor earthlings?
Obviously we’d be talking about human type beings created in God’s image.
Heck, I would baptize an alien if he asked me to!
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