VATICAN CITY - The Vatican's chief astronomer says that believing in aliens does not contradict faith in God.

The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, said that the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones.

In an interview published Tuesday by Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Funes said that such a notion "doesn't contradict our faith" because aliens would still be God's creatures."

"...aliens would still be God's creatures."

So those creatures flying around in the ether, their wings attached, are also God's creatures, because He covers the Universal Waterfront.

In that case, the well-known (and increasingly difficult to accept) insistence that "nothing human is alien to me" should be replaced by "nothing alien is alien to me. "

I'm having a little trouble accepting that notion, but I promise to give it the old school try.