How Do You Say "Klaatu Barada Nikto" In Latin?

Oh man, this is really going to tick off Lou Dobbs.

The Pope's chief astronomer--well, his only astronomer-- has conceded other intelligent beings could exist in outer space provided they're not lutherans. "We're talking intelligent life here," the astronomer said. The conclusion has been drawn by members of the Yorba Linda High School Science Club called in by the Vatican to study the possibility of extraterrestrial life and its implications for shifting the blame for all those anal probes priests are accused of. "This pope likes to think outside of the box," said one vatican official.

Aliens. And they're coming from outer space. How do you build a wall against that?

The Vatican's five-day conference attracted 30 astronomers, physicists and biologists, including non-Catholics and other humanoids.

Thirty? You call a conference and you only get thirty people? We got more than that over to watch the Star Trek marathon. Course we had to buy the beer, but let's not quibble. We can see why you let in people from the fake churches. How come the low turn out padre?

It has been four centuries since the Catholic Church locked up Galileo for challenging the belief that the Earth was at the center of the universe.

Yeah. Church does tend to hold a grudge, huh? Plus it's not like the pope has gone all Carl Sagan on us anyway, is it?

The conference was was held in the apartment of Jesuit priest Father Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory and gift shop which does not have its telescope pointed at the convent across the street so don't even go there. Father Funes says the possibility of alien life raises "many philosophical and theological implications, especially if they have the concepts of money and donate," but that the gathering was mainly focused on the scientific perspective and what we can do to get rid of it.

One of the organisers was Chris Impey, a professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona. He says the aim was to spend a weekend speaking Klingon only and assess the most recent research around the question of what Sarek ever saw in an earth woman.

"And also getting a sense of when, you know, the Vulcans will make contact," he said.

"If you were going to take a set of bets of the 30 scientists gathered for that meeting, I think most of them would have said the first Star Wars trilogy was the best," Impey added.

Dr Paul Collins, a former priest and now Church historian, Catholic commentator, and official spokesperson for the pope's soccer team says a belief in extraterrestrial life does not necessarily contradict any basic tenets of the Catholic religion. "Especially if they're ugly," he added. "I mean, figure it out. We were made in god's image, so if aliens show up and they look like spiders, or goats with faces we just say those are the prototypes before god worked out the glitches. Wham bam, problem solved. It's sort of like what we used to do with black folks before civil rights."

"Essentially what the Christian faith generally is saying and certainly Catholicism specifically is saying is that God is the ultimate source of life, the ultimate source of reality," Collins said. "Which is why we have to expose Glenn Beck for the Mothman that he is."

The views of the Catholic Church have shifted radically since the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake as a heretic in 1600 for speculating other worlds could be inhabited. "Yeah," Collins said. "Now we just hack your Facebook page and photoshop the devil's face over yours on all your pictures."

And Dr Collins sees no problem with where aliens might fit in with the belief that man was created in God's image. "Every creature reflects the goodness and the creativity of God. Humankind, well, white western humankind we certainly would argue represents that most fully and most completely," he said. "Which is why alien will be the new black. Or maybe the new gay, it depends if they're bigger than us or have more arms or laser eyes or something.