YOU’RE TRAVELING THROUGH ANOTHER DIMENSION—A DIMENSION NOT ONLY OF SIGHT AND SOUND BUT OF MIND. A JOURNEY INTO A WONDROUS LAND WHOSE BOUNDARIES ARE THAT OF IMAGINATION. THAT’S A SIGNPOST UP AHEAD: YOUR NEXT STOP: THE TWILIGHT ZONE!

This month’s edition of the Diocese of Savannah’s monthly magazine, The Southern Cross, once a weekly newspaper, allows our diocesan readers to travel through another dimension! And, as the little girl with a thick southern fried accent, told TV audiences in a 1960’s commercial, while her mother was cooking chicken with “Shake and Bake” , I can say, “And I helped” to make our Diocesan Southern Cross, the Southern Cross Zone, cue the Twilight Zone music. 

My heart pounding Twilight Zone article is reprinted in full below these photos:

DOES THE CHURCH BELIEVE THERE IS INTELLIGENT LIFE, HUMAN AND NON-HUMAN BEYOND EARTH? YES!!!

 Does the Catholic Church, though, have a teaching on Extraterrestrial life from outer space? NO!

 But the Church is not opposed to studying the question of life elsewhere, either non-intelligent life or intelligent life even more intelligent than human beings created in the image and likeness of God.

 Recently there seems to be documented evidence of “UFO’s”. We don’t know for sure if these are unidentified because they are unknown man-made aircraft or from some far distant universe which has made its way here. You can cue the Twilight Zone music now. 

Recently Congress heard from some people who say that extraterrestrial life has made its way here. Some say that biological material of these now dead “aliens” remains with us. However no verifiable proof was provided for us mere mortals to see! I find it harder to believe these testimonies than I do to believe aliens exist!

While the Church as no specific teachings on Extraterrestrial life, theologians and we rank and file Catholics can speculate on their existence and speculate if they need salvation in Jesus Christ, who alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life and He alone opens the doors of heaven to those otherwise condemned to an eternity in hell, life without God and all that it means to live without God. 

For centuries, people have wondered about alien intelligent life somewhere else. In the 20^th Century, Orson Wells had his famous 1938 radio broadcast about Martians landing on earth and taking things over. It was presented as a newscast and people believed what they were hearing was reality, not a science fiction radio show. 

The most famous alien is Superman, a strange visitor from a distant planet with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. He looked like us, but he was/is the man of steel. Nonetheless he is an extraterrestrial. It is science fiction of course, but capitalizes on our belief that aliens do exist, are here and are smarter than us. 

Are there visitors, quite different than us, visiting us from another dimension, which the Catholic Church teaches, believes and is revealed by God? Yes, you bet you! They are called angels and there are 9 choirs of angels in heaven. And some of them have visited earth, Saint Gabriel the Archangel is one brilliant example, and he is far superior to Superman! The Archangel Gabriel is real. He is perfect and he has no need of baptism or to be saved. He used his free will not to disobey God when all the angels had a choice to obey God forever or disobey him forever. 

Some angels chose to definitively and for an eternity to disobey God with their free will. The Archangel Lucifer is a primary example. He and the other fallen angels now dwell for an eternity in the abode of hell. They can be manifested here on earth too, as we know the Church teaches. And their evil is more dangerous than the evil of any alien seen in science fiction movies. 

Also, another possibility is that the Saints in heaven have appeared to us here on earth in a visible way. Think of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s appearances which includes her body and soul. Perhaps other saints have made themselves known in a tangible way to others here on earth.   

As I write this on the Eve of the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, body and soul into heaven, we know that heaven can contain the physical body and other physical material things like trees, food, drink and the like. Maybe there are heavenly “spacecrafts” capable of traversing the dimension between heaven and earth (or more frighteningly between hell and earth) to bring visitors to earth, who are human but some from heaven or maybe some from hell? The Church has no teaching on this, but I think we are free to speculate.  

But let’s say very intelligent life, more so than mere mortal beings like us, have an ability to traverse long distances in a moment, like being “beamed up by Scotty” a la Star Trek. 

If this is possible, perhaps there were other “Gardens of Eden” that God created, other Adams and Eves, and in those “Gardens of Eden” the Adams and Eves never committed any kind of Original Sin. Thus, they live forever and can do things that we poor miserable sinners can’t do because of Original Sin. Thus, they remained in the perfect state of being created in the image and likeness of God without ever sinning like the angels who remained eternally committed to God without falling like Lucifer did.

The other possibility is that intelligent human-like life is visiting us. We see them now because they live in our midst and act like us even in sinning. They are like the “Cone-heads” from the golden years of “Saturday Night Live” who said they were from France, but clearly aliens due to the shape of their head and other abnormalities not visible due to clothing.

Thus, we Catholics have an obligation to get them into the RCIA and evangelize them and enable them to say yes to Jesus and His salvation by His grace and through the Sacraments of the Church especially the Sacraments of Initiation, Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Eucharist. 

Just be sure you evangelize and don’t proselytize. That is the way of the Synodal Church's inclusiveness!