“UAP Disclosure” and Catholic dogma

Abstract

For over a decade, the United States has been undergoing a process of graduał destigmatization of the topic of UFOs/UAPs and recognition of the reality of this phenomenon by public authorities. The most popular hypothesis explaining their origin is the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH). Politicians and analysts are concerned about the potential reaction of religious communities to a fundamental change in the worldview associated with the admission that “we are not the only intelligent beings.” Using selected examples, this article analyzes two opposing positions of Catholic theologians regarding extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) in order to determine the scope of the Catholic Church’s adaptive capabilities, and particularly the problems such a potential admission might pose for Catholic dogmatics. Due to the significant expansion of its interpretive methods in the 20th century, the Church has gained significantly greater freedom in interpreting its own teachings. This makes the Church relatively well prepared for the ongoing processes compared to Catholic traditionalism or Protestant fundamentalism. However, some of the phenomena associated with UAPs, which are not easily interpreted within the framework of ETH, may prove highly problematic for the Church.