The Church has made many statements that contradict alien belief.
When it comes to the question of extraterrestrials, I can say with absolute certainty that belief in aliens is ruled out by Scripture, Tradition, Magisterium — and, especially, by Jesus words to Luisa! (Copied below are some messages from the volumes.)
It is true that the Church has not made a specific, ex-cathedra statement that explicitly addresses belief in aliens directly. But the Church has made many statements that contradict alien belief.
The Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta: In the “Whole Creation,” Only Man Has Reason
The Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta was an extraordinary Italian mystic who died in the year 1947 and received thousands of pages of approved revelations from Jesus and Mary. We will deal with her first, as I am convinced that the messages she received are the greatest private revelations in the history of the Church. (I encourage learning about her in Thy Will Be Done, published 2021). For now, a brief introduction will suffice. St. Hannibal di Francia—an Italian priest and founder of religious orders who was canonized by Pope St. John Paul II in 2004—dedicated the last decades of his life to promoting Luisa’s revelations. The Vatican’s official biography of Luisa, The Sun of My Will (SunOfMyWill.com), recounts the saint’s words about Luisa:
[She] emerges to be a singular predilection of the Divine Redeemer, Jesus Our Lord, who century after century, increases ever more the wonders of His love. It seems that He wanted to form this virgin, whom He calls the littlest one He found on earth, and bereft of any education, into an instrument of a mission so sublime, that is, the triumph of the Divine Will, in conformity with what is said in the Our Father prayer[i]… (Page 122)
Therein lies the essence of these private revelations: heralding the fulfillment of the Our Father prayer. St. Hannibal was so convinced of the authenticity of Luisa’s revelations that he personally bestowed nineteen of his own nihil obstats (he was appointed censor librorum) to them, which were all followed up with corresponding imprimaturs from the Archbishop.
St. Hannibal, however, was not the only saint who knew Luisa and endorsed her. The Vatican’s official biography of Luisa also recounts the strong support she received from St. Padre Pio:
There are countless testimonies beyond these [i.e., those recorded from Federico Abresch and Mrs. Caterina Valentina] that talk about the mutual esteem and faith Luisa and Padre Pio had in each other … Even the residents of San Giovanni Rotondo knew how much respect Padre Pio had for Luisa. (Pages 174-175)[1]
Luisa’s life was filled with miracles rigorously scrutinized and documented by priests, Bishops, theologians, doctors, and scientists, who each ruled out any possible non-supernatural explanation. She even lived decades subsisting solely on the Holy Eucharist, consuming no other food. Her messages from Jesus are filled with prophecies that have been clearly fulfilled. (See Part Four of Thy Will Be Done for a partial overview of these.) Since her death over 75 years ago, Luisa’s legacy of holiness has only grown, and confirmations of the orthodoxy of her messages have only multiplied. Indeed, not only was she declared a Servant of God, but her holiness and orthodoxy was thereafter confirmed by her diocese (in 2005), and her cause is now proceeding well in its Vatican stage. Multiple Church-approved religious orders already existed dedicated to Luisa’s revelations (including the Benedictines of the Divine Will). Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints under Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, strongly endorsed Luisa and her revelations from Jesus in a preface he wrote for the Vatican’s aforementioned biography of her. (Considering the Cardinal’s position, if anyone alive knows what makes a saint and an authentic revelation, it is he who does!)
All this, however, is only a very brief and partial overview of the authenticity of Luisa’s revelations. Luisa’s private revelations are as authentic as they come, and we should approach the following messages understanding that fact.
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Note: In some of the following excerpts of Jesus’ revelations to her, it must be understood that in the contexts of the messages that follow, “creation,” here as in similar literature, refers to physical creation; not to angels. Each message will be cited only with a date; this corresponds to the entry in Luisa’s diary that the excerpt is taken from, which is enough information to easily locate the original source. Please note as well that when Jesus refers to “Us” or to “We,” He is referring to the Three Persons of the Trinity.
Reiterating Biblical, Catholic, and even common-sense philosophical teaching, Jesus tells Luisa:
Creation was made for man—in it he was to be the king of all created things. (July 29th, 1926) All created things were made for man, and man for Us. (September 24th, 1928)
We have already reviewed this point in earlier sections, but it must be restated how absurd it would be for man to be king of the universe (as indeed he is), if he is only one among multiple (even many) races of intelligent incarnate beings of whose existence he is not even aware.
In many other passages, Jesus makes it explicit to Lusia that the entire universe (not only planet earth) solely exists for the sake of the offspring of Adam, and that the creation of man constituted the only thing in the entire universe made in His Image. He tells her:
…what ardor of love was the creation of man. … shaken by Our own love, We looked at the machine of the whole universe and We gave him [man] everything as gift, constituting him king of all created things… (January 13, 1928) …there is great difference between the creation of the whole universe and the creation of man. … in the creation of man, there was not only the creative and preserving act, but the active act added to it-and of an activity ever new; and this, because man was created in Our Image and Likeness… This is why We love him [man] so much-because he is not only Our work, like all the rest of creation, but he possesses part of Our Life, in a real way; We feel in him the life of Our Love. How not to love him? (November 10, 1929) …see what order there is in the creation of the whole universe: there are heavens, stars, suns-all ordered. Much more so in creating man; Our Divine Being stretched out the order of Our Divine qualities like many heavens in the depth of his soul. (April 23, 1930) … since man was made by Us to live in Our Will, all Our acts had to serve as many little cities or nations in which man could find, by right, his Fatherland… one can say that the sun is a city, and as the soul enters Our Will, she finds this city of light …O, how happy We are, in seeing Our works-Our cities, created only for man, no longer as deserts, but populated by Our children. (March 28, 1938) The only purpose of creation was that all would fulfill my Will – not that man would do great things… (November 26, 1921) … the life of Heaven upon the earth [is the] only purpose of the Creation. (January 18, 1928)
Expounding upon what mankind’s status as the king of all creation entails, Jesus tells Luisa:
So, each created thing holds out my love to man; and if it were not so, Creation would have no purpose; and I do nothing without purpose. Everything has been made for man; but man does not recognize it, and he has turned into sorrow for Me. (January 9, 1920)
Jesus explains to Luisa that Creation—the entire material universe—would simply have no purpose without man. He even tells her that everything in the universe other than man—including the very “heavens studded with stars,” was nothing but a preparation for man:
My daughter, here is why in Creation there were so many preparations … What did We not prepare so that this feast might be one of the most solemn? Heavens studded with stars, sun radiant with light, refreshing winds, seas, … After having prepared everything, We created man, that he might celebrate, and We together with him. (July 23, 1931)
But this reality is incoherent if there are other rational incarnate creatures, as a purpose of all these things could be found in serving this other race of rational creatures. Rendering it even more clear that by “creation,” or “all things,” or any other similar reference, Jesus is most emphatically not referring only to those things within this particular planet, Jesus tells Luisa:
My daughter, I created the heavens and I centralized My love for man in the heavens; and in order to give him greater delight, I studded them with stars. I did not love the heavens, but man in the heavens, and for him I created them… [the heavens] were to serve him as pure delight… (October 29, 1926)
God created the very heavens themselves for us. He does not love the heavens! Yet, consider how blasphemous it would be to accuse God of not loving a domain that includes His own children (that is, any creature bearing His image; i.e., having a rational soul). It will not work to claim Jesus only meant He does not love the mere matter of the Heavens, but does love “aliens” therein. For that assessment would be true of earth also, yet Scripture teaches that “God so loved the world, that he sent his only son” into it. (John 3:16) Jesus loves creation simply for our sake; because the entirety of it—from each atom to each galaxy, to the entire universe, and everything in between—exists for us, and only for us. Jesus also tells Luisa:
The Eternal One looked at the heavens and remained content in seeing the immense harmonies, the communications of love which He had opened between Heaven and earth. …So, everything you see, even the most tiny little flower in the field, was one more relation between creature and Creator. (February 20, 1919) “The heavens are nothing other than an act of profound adoration of the immensity of Our Divine Being” (April 12, 1929)
As with the Bible itself, so too with this passage we see eliminated any enigma for those who would ask, “why would God create such an expanse of Heavens if not to populate it with aliens?”
The answer is simple: each created thing, has “a relation, a channel of graces, a special love” between God and man. Everything God has made tells us something about Him. The incomprehensibly large expanse of the cosmos—which we see only a tiny fraction of with the naked eye in the night sky—testifies to His omnipotence and majesty. Each new galaxy we discover reminds us of that, and silently declares that no matter how much we plumb the depths of God, there will always be more. Why did He put them there if we could only discover them in the Third Millennium? The reason is simple: God knew that, in the Third Millennium, we would need those additional reminders of His glory and beauty. There is no other reason for the existence of the heavens than this: God’s love for the human race; that is, His love for descendants of Adam and Eve, dwelling on earth.
[Luisa writes:] It seems that the Divine Volition longs for the love of Its beloved creature, to be able to find the little prop of love, upon which to lean Its great love. So, heavens, suns, winds, are nothing other than insinuating and continuous calls, to tell us: “I have anticipated you with my love; and you—do not leave Me without yours.” (October 21, 1932)
Jesus would regularly correct Luisa when she spoke incorrectly. Yet He not only lets this claim stand, but He follows up with a lengthy message of His own, confirming her sentiments. Consider, however, how wrong it would be to describe, as Luisa does here, the very “heavens” themselves—even the “suns” (stars) therein, as being “nothing other than” (i.e., existing for no other reason than) calls to “us” (earthlings) about God’s love. If rational beings dwelt therein, then those “suns” exist for them, not for us.
Humans, moreover, are the only material creatures who can love God; they are also the only material creatures who can sin. Jesus emphasizes this truth to Luisa in multiple messages:
Only the human will, as We had created it with the great gift of the free willing … might love Us and remain together with Us, to receive the operating life in Our Volition … It was the greatest honor and gift We gave. (May 12, 1934) Only the human will, if it wants to operate on its own, without the union of Ours, can break this beautiful union, this bond of inseparability among God, created things and creatures. (January 2, 1930) The most beautiful thing created by Us was the human will. Among all created things it is the most beautiful, that which resembles Us more, therefore it can be called the queen among everything, as indeed it is. (June 16, 1934)
Note that Jesus does not merely say that the “free will,” in general, is the most beautiful thing He made—as if to leave open the possibility that other incarnate creatures also have such a faculty. Instead, He indicates that only human beings can claim such an exalted state. Nothing but human beings have reason, as Jesus explicitly states in the following passage:
[Luisa writes] “I was doing my round through the whole Creation…oh, how beautiful it seemed to me! … each created thing…[veils] within itself the creative power and Will… the Sun, the heavens, the stars, the wind, the sea…” [Jesus responds:] “My daughter, look at how beautiful Our works are—pure, holy and all orderly. We made use of creation in order to form Our veils, Our vast residences; however, We held back from giving reason to them, because they were created for man, not for themselves, and therefore We reserved giving to man the capacity and reason of the whole Creation…” (September 2, 1928).
In this passage, Jesus bluntly states that only man has reason. In the “whole Creation”—that is, the entire material universe; the same passage even explicitly indicates it is referring to the stars—absolutely nothing else and no one else enjoys rationality. This is why the rational soul of man—intellect, memory, and will—is the only thing therein that keeps God company:
In creating man I said, ‘It is not good for man to be alone, let Us make another creature similar to him, who may keep him company, so that one may form the delight of the other’, I said these same words to my love before creating man: ‘I do not want to be alone, but I want the creature for my company. … With his company I will pour Myself out in love.’ This is why I made him in my likeness; and as his intelligence thinks of Me and is interested in Me, he keeps company with my wisdom, and as my thoughts keep company with his, we amuse ourselves together. If his gaze looks at Me and at created things in order to love Me, I feel the company of his gaze. (January 24, 1920)
Before creating man, we see, God “said to His love,” that it did not want to be “alone.” (This, of course, is mystical language, not a strict theological description of the Divine Nature—before creation existed, God was “infinitely perfect and blessed in Himself.” (CCC, §1)) Had aliens existed, God would not have “said” that, since He already would not have been “alone.” Further explaining why man is, as it were, “everything” to God, Jesus provides Luisa the following beautiful message on Christmas Day:
We find Ourselves in the condition of an artisan who has made his beautiful statue …..The artisan loves this statue so much that he has placed his very life in it …Such is the state the Divinity is in with regard to man… in creating the heavens, the stars, the sun, the wind, the sea, the earth, it was Our works that We issued, and the flowerings of Our beautiful qualities. Only for man was this greatest prodigy of creating the life—and the life of Our Love itself; and this is why it is said that he was created in Our Image and Likeness. And this is why We love him so much-because it is life and work that has come out of Us, and life costs more than anything. (December 25, 1928)
Only man, Jesus here teaches, harbors the Image of God. Only man.
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Many other passages from Luisa’s revelations could be presented,[2] but we must pass over them for the sake of space. What is included above is more than sufficient to make it clear that we are presented with a simple choice: either believe in aliens and reject Luisa, or believe in Jesus’ revelations to this Servant of God and reject aliens. The former option, however, is not remotely palatable from an authentically Catholic perspective. There has not been a single mystic in the history of the Church who has seen the verifications of authenticity that Luisa has, only to later be proven inauthentic. There is, quite simply, no chance that these revelations are anything but supernatural in o
[1] Here I note that, unlike a certain quote regarding aliens, allegedly attributed to Padre Pio (but almost certainly counterfeit or misinterpreted) purely via hearsay from an anonymous source, what we have here is entirely different. Padre Pio’s support of Luisa is confirmed by these authoritative sources, vetted by the Vatican, based on the testimony of multiple people (whose names and identities are known), in writing. Indeed, the support is entirely undeniable, notwithstanding the attempts of some of Luisa’s critics to do precisely that.
[2] To give just one more example, a constant and important theme in Luisa’s revelations is the spiritual practice of undertaking “The Rounds,” in which one spiritually “goes through” all that God has done – all of it – to offer it back to Him in adoration. It is quite like (but a major expansion upon) the Cantle of Daniel’s companions, wherein the Church (in her public prayer—the Divine Office) continuously prays for all that God has created to “bless the Lord.” Similar spiritual practices are found in the revelations of St. Faustina. Now, these Rounds would be deprived of their purpose if they were missing in them an entire category of beings in “the Great Chain of Creation.” Yet, despite the many descriptions of the Rounds in Luisa’s revelations, not one of them contains the slightest implication that there may be aliens. Rather, each time the Rounds are implored, undertaken, or described, their scope is identical: They include all that God has made or accomplished, namely, yet they never include any indication of, implication of, or even space for, extraterrestrials. One dialogue between Luisa and Jesus is recorded in the following entry in the Diary, “‘My Divine Jesus, I want to love You together with the Father and the Holy Spirit.’ But it seemed He was not content yet. And I: ‘I want to love You together with all the Angels and Saints.’ And He: “And with whom else?” ‘With all the pilgrim souls and unto the last creature that will exist upon earth. I want to bring You everyone and everything – even the heavens, the sun, the wind, the sea – to love You together with all.’ “ At this point, Jesus was at last content with Luisa’s description of “all things.” The passage continues: “And Jesus, all love, such that it seemed He could not contain the flames, added: “My daughter, behold my Heaven in the creature: the Sacrosanct Trinity yielding Its love in order to love Me together with her; the Angels and Saints competing in giving out their love so as to love Me together with her. This is the great act: to bring all into the All, who is God … you want to give Me everything, up to the very Adorable Trinity…and I can say: ‘I lack nothing – neither Heaven, nor my Celestial Mother, nor the cortege of the Angels and Saints. All are with Me, and all love Me.’”(October 22, 1933) It is difficult to imagine any additional superlatives Jesus or Luisa could have amassed to better convey the point that the purpose of the Rounds is to exclude absolutely nothing that God has made. Instead of seeing any implications that extraterrestrials might exist within this sphere of reality, we see only the opposite: the Rounds repeatedly treating human beings—earthlings—as the only rational incarnate creatures.
[i] Note: the last clause is indeed St. Hannibal’s own; he includes those words in the original text. However, they are part of the abridged portion of what it is included in The Sun of My Will—
“There is only one tragedy, ultimately: not to have been a saint.”
In His Will,
In Christ, through Mary,
Daniel
