Benedict XVI on Adam, Original Sin, and Intelligent Aliens

A 2014 letter from former pope Benedict XVI is circulating online. In it, he answers questions about Adam and Eve, original sin, and intelligent aliens—and what he says will anger a lot of people.

In this episode, Jimmy Akin checks whether the letter is real, compares it with Benedict’s other post-resignation letters, and weighs the credibility of the professor who published it. He then explains what authority the letter has and walks through Benedict’s answers on polygenism, original sin, extraterrestrial life, and the cosmic scope of Christ’s victory.

 

TRANSCRIPT:

Coming Up

A 2014 letter from former pope Benedict XVI has been making the rounds online.

He answers questions about Adam and Eve, original sin . . . and intelligent aliens.

But what he says is going to make a lot of people angry.

So, is the letter real, and what does he say?

Let’s get into it!

* * *

Howdy, folks!

We’re in our third year of the podcast now, and you can help me keep making this podcast for years to come—and get early access to new episodes—by going to Patreon.com/JimmyAkinPodcast

 

Introduction

Recently on X, science fiction author Patrick Abbott posted a 2014 letter that had been written by former pope Benedict XVI.

He also carboned me, saying, “Hoping Jimmy Akin would be interested in this.”

Indeed! I was interested, and I thanked him for calling it to my attention.

 

Is It Real?

Of course, the first question to ask about anything like this is whether or not it’s real.

It would be easy for anybody in the world to use a word processor to write a fake letter that says things some folks won’t like, attribute it to Benedict, post it online, and sit back and watch the sparks fly.

So my first job was to see if the letter was even real or not.

That meant looking at the people and circumstances concerning the letter.

According to the images of it, the letter was written on June 6 of 2014.

That would put it in the period after he resigned the papacy, which he did in February of 2013—15 months earlier.

We know that Benedict continued to write after he resigned. In fact, in 2023 a book collecting his post-resignation essays was published titled What Is Christianity? The Last Writings.

We also know that he wrote letters, and several have been published. Letters he wrote after the resignation that have been published include:

• 2014: Andrea Tornielli
• 21, 2014: Msgr. Nicola Bux
• 9, 2017: Card. Walter Brandmuller
• 23, 2017: Card. Walter Brandmuller
• 7, 2018: Msgr. Dario Vigano—who is not the same guy as the nutty former archbishop that became a sedevacantist

In any event, there’s nothing implausible in principle about the idea of Benedict writing post-resignation letters.

One of the things about this letter is that it’s written on a special letterhead.

At the top left of the page, it says Benedictus XVI, Papa Emeritus—or “Benedict XVI, Pope Emeritus.”

On the top right, just above the date, it says Citta del Vaticano, or Vatican City.

Well, after his resignation, Benedict lived in a monastery in Vatican City, so that fits.

And—if he was going to be writing letters—it would be a good idea to get new letterhead that made it clear he was no longer pope—and thus that the letter contained purely his private opinions—so that would make sense.

We also see how he signed himself at the end of the letter, which was as Benedetto Sedeci or Benedict XVI.

And the good news is that when other letters Benedict wrote were published, some of them were published along with images. That lets us compare the images of this letter with them.

When we look at the August 2014 letter to Msgr. Bux—written just 2 months after the one we’re interested in—we see that it has the same letterhead, saying “Benedict XVI, Pope Emeritus” on the left and Vatican City over the date.

When we look at the first page of the 2018 letter to Msgr. Vigano, we see the same letterhead, with “Benedict XVI, Pope Emeritus” on the left and Vatican City on the right.

And when we look at the second page, we see that he’s also signed himself Benedict XVI.

So all that matches.

Of course, this doesn’t prove that the letter is authentic. Any document examiner will tell you that you can’t established authenticity by looking at photographs. You have to be able to examine the originals.

Someone could have learned about Benedict’s letterhead, had a fake batch printed up, and then faked his signature.

But we’re at least seeing points that are consistent with his known post-resignation letters.

Now, the letter we’re interested in is in Italian, and that’s not a problem. We know that Benedict was fluent in Italian.

But he was a native German speaker, and that left traces in his Italian.

I won’t go into the details on this—because it’s really technical—but the letter contains spellings, words, and phrases that suggest it was written by a native German-speaker rather than a native Italian-speaker.

So that checks out.

The person the letter is written to is Paolo Musso. He’s also the man who released the letter to the public.

Musso is a professor and philosopher of science at the University of Insubria, and a visiting epistemology professor at a Catholic university in Lima, Peru.

He’s a member of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Committee of the International Academy of Astronautics.

He wrote a prize-winning essay for a contest sponsored by Oxford University, and he’s a 2017 Oxford Fellow.

So he’s quite academically respectable, and he would have a lot to lose if he went around publishing fake letters from the former pope.

That’s a notable mark of credibility.

A further mark of credibility is the way he released the letter. He didn’t just put it on X or on his blog or something.

In February of 2021, he published a book titled La vita extraterrestre or Extraterrestrial Life, which is a university textbook and contains the letter as an appendix.

And it says right on the cover of the book, “con una lettera inedita di Benedetto XVI” or “with an unpublished letter of Benedict XVI.”

So they’re not trying to hide this. They’re putting it right up front.

The book was published by Edizioni Studium, which is a Catholic academic publisher in Rome that was co-founded by the future Pope Paul VI and that publishes intellectual titles on the intersection of theology, philosophy, history, and education.

So they would have a lot to lose if they went around publishing fake letters by the former pope, too!

Further, the University of Insubria held the presentation of the book, which they also advertised as containing an unpublished letter from Benedict.

So their reputation was on the line also.

And in 2021, Musso gave a presentation at the International Academy of Astronautics about his interaction with Benedict. In the abstract of his presentation he said:

“Benedict XVI and SETI”

The discovery of other civilizations in the universe would clearly have deep religious implications. Despite this, when I started getting involved in SETI only very few theologians had seriously reflected about the subject, while there was no official position of the Catholic Church as such, whose attitude could be summarized as “wait and see.” So, one day I wrote to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, asking for his opinion about some theological issues related with extraterrestrial intelligent life, first of all, of course, whether it can exist from a Christian point of view. On 6 June 2014, he sent me a reply letter with some very interesting and open-minded considerations, but, being strictly personal, so far I used it only as a reference point for my reflections, without discussing it in public. However, when at the beginning of 2021 I decided to publish a university textbook about extraterrestrial life and its cultural implications, I asked him to authorize me to include the letter as an appendix, [which] he did. So, now I finally have the opportunity to present and discuss this historical document, where, for the first time in history, a Pope, although no longer in office, has taken an open position to the possible existence of other intelligent species besides humanity.

So Musso was giving academic talks about the letter. He also gave press interviews about it.

With Musso’s reputation, the reputation of the Catholic academic publisher, the reputation of the university, and the reputation of the scientific association all wrapped up in this, if it turned out that the letter was fake then it would severely damage all of them and would absolutely destroy Musso’s academic career.

I mean, even a tenured professor would be stripped of tenure, fired, and be unemployable at any other academic institution for that.

Even plagiarism—or using someone’s words and ideas without crediting them—can get professors fired. In fact, professors have been fired for that.

Putting words into someone’s mouth by publishing a forged letter, let alone one by the pope—especially in Italy—would be absolutely career shredding.

We thus have very strong motives of credibility in favor of the letter.

Finally, the book was released in February of 2021—near the beginning of the year—and at that time Benedict was still alive.

He did not die until December of 2022—at the end of the year, almost 2 years later.

So the textbook came out during Benedict’s lifetime.

And Musso was claiming not only that he had written the letter in 2014 but that he also had a second communication in which Benedict authorized him to include the letter as an appendix.

And with that letter appearing a university textbook being published—especially during Benedict’s lifetime—then if it were fake we would expect either Benedict himself, his personal secretary, or somebody from the Vatican to start yelling that the letter was fake.

And they didn’t.

Not in Benedict’s lifetime, and not in any of the years since then.

I thus consider it morally certain that the letter is genuine, and we are safe proceeding on that basis.

 

What Authority Does It Have?

Another question we should look at is what authority the letter has.

The short answer is: It doesn’t have any authority. When Benedict resigned the papacy, he resigned the authoritative teaching role he had as pope.

As a result, the letter is not a Church document. It falls into the same category as Benedict’s other private writings—like all the book and articles he published before becoming pope.

However, that doesn’t mean that the letter is without value—any more than it means that all of Benedict’s writings before he was pope were without value.

Not only is it valuable because of Joseph Ratzinger’s razor-sharp theological mind, he also occupied the two positions that establish the bounds of permitted Catholic opinion in any given generation—namely, the cardinal prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the papacy itself.

Now, I’m not talking here about something that one of them might say off the top of their head in an interview or something. Even popes and CDF prefects can express themselves badly when they’re speaking spontaneously.

But if they express themselves in writing, then they’ve had time to consider what they’re going to say, and their responsibilities for teaching Catholic doctrine mean that we should at least start by assuming that what they have written is a permitted Catholic opinion.

As I point out in my book, Teaching With Authority:

Teaching With Authority, 539

Finally, members of the Magisterium may express theological opinions, and these generally may be presumed legitimate. Bishops in communion with the pope are commissioned to teach the Faith and are guided by the Holy Spirit. One could not seriously maintain that theological opinions expressed by bishops and the pope should be presumed illegitimate!

Of course, that presumption can be defeated. There are bishops who hold theological views that should have stopped them from being appointed—or who have gone off the rails since their appointment.

But there are two bishops in particular whose theological opinions carry a stronger presumption of legitimacy. As I also point out:

Teaching With Authority, 540

Two bishops deserve special attention in this regard—the pope himself and the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. These are the bishops most responsible for protecting the faith of Christians, and their views carry a stronger presumption of orthodoxy. The pope is the vicar of Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit to confirm his brother bishops in the Faith (cf. Luke 22:32), and the head of the CDF is the chief doctrinal watchdog of the Church. If you can’t presume that these men’s views are orthodox, who can you?

The presumption also applies to works they produced prior to entering these offices. If a man were known to be fundamentally unorthodox, the college of cardinals wouldn’t have elected him pope, and if a man’s theological judgment was fundamentally unsound, the pope wouldn’t appoint him to head the CDF.

Now, you could still say that this doesn’t apply to a specific pope or a specific head of the CDF. You could say that they were mistakenly appointed or that they went off the rails.

But that does not apply to Joseph Ratzinger—either when he was the head of the CDF, or when he was pope, or afterward.

We can therefore look to what Benedict wrote as an indicator of what permitted Catholic opinion is.

You could overcome that presumption in theory—perhaps on a specific point—but he was not only orthodox but also the greatest theological mind in his generation of churchmen.

We’re thus on very safe ground taking his writings as a very solid indicator of what opinions Catholics are permitted to hold.

As Prof. Musso says in his textbook Extraterrestial Life:

Extraterrestrial Life, IV:5

The fact remains that this is the opinion of the greatest theologian of our time and one of the greatest of all time, who, besides being Pope, was also head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for almost 24 years. I would therefore say that, whatever one thinks of him, he deserves to be listened to with the utmost attention.

And I definitely agree with that.

So, whew! With all that as background—let’s take a look at the letter.

 

Four Questions

In Extraterrestrial Life, Prof. Musso gives us a little more background on how he received the letter from Benedict. He writes:

Extraterrestrial Life, Appendix

The letter reproduced here, with the explicit authorization of His Holiness, was written by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on June 6, 2014, in reply to a letter of mine of March 22 in which I put to him some questions on important theological matters, all connected in one way or another with the problem of extraterrestrial life.

So Musso wrote Benedict on March 22, 2014, and Benedict wrote back on June 6th.

And—as we’ll see—not all of the questions he asked the former pope were directly connected with extraterrestrial life. Some of them were only indirectly related to the question and concerned human origins.

Musso also gives some additional detail a bit earlier in the book, writing:

Extraterrestrial Life, IV:5

Since the questions involved were very tough, there was no point in asking advice from just any theologian: I wanted only the best, all the more since it was very easy to identify who that was. Working out how to reach him, on the other hand, was very difficult, but at last, in 2014, the right opportunity came, thanks to Monsignor Guido Marini (born 1965), master of pontifical liturgical celebrations, who kindly acted as go-between, delivering to Benedict XVI a letter of mine in which I asked his opinion on a few but burning questions.

His reply, dated June 6, 2014, reached me exactly a month after he had received mine: a very short time, considering the mass of work he still had even as Emeritus, a year after his resignation. I remember being particularly struck by the very carefully prepared packet and by the fact that he had sent it to me not by ordinary mail but by the Vatican diplomatic courier. That may seem a trifle, but it immediately gave me the distinct impression, later duly confirmed by the text, that he had understood how important the matter was to me and therefore wanted to be sure that his reply reached me without mishap.

And that was reasonable, because the Italian mail system has a reputation for mishaps. The Vatican post office has a reputation for being much better, and the diplomatic couriers are better yet.

Unfortunately, Prof. Musso does not reproduce the text of his letter in the book, and I really wish he had, so that we could clearly see both sides of the conversation.

However, from Benedict’s reply, we can tell that Prof. Musso asked him four questions, and from how Benedict answers, we can tell something about what the questions were.

Also, in the textbook, Prof. Musso summarizes them. He says:

Extraterrestrial Life, IV:5

My first question was whether the origin of humanity from a single couple, as the Bible narrates it, should be taken literally (the thesis of monogenism) or not (the thesis of polygenism).

I’ll explain more about this in a bit, but for now we can say that the first question dealt with

• Polygenism

Musso continues:

Extraterrestrial Life, IV:5

My second question went straight for the “big target,” namely nothing less than the correct interpretation of the nature of original sin.

So the second question was about

• Original Sin

These first two questions were thus about human origins rather than directly about extraterrestrial life, but that’s going to change with the third question.

Unfortunately, we have a bit of a difficulty, here, because in his reply, Benedict combined his answers to the third and fourth questions.

That means that they were closely related, but it also means that it’s at least a little harder to pull them apart.

Prof. Musso also doesn’t clearly distinguish them in the textbook. Instead, he says:

Extraterrestrial Life, IV:5

Finally, here is the question most eagerly awaited: whether the existence of other intelligent species in the universe is admissible for the Christian faith.

Now, in Benedict’s reply to questions 3 and 4, he clearly addresses the subject of extraterrestrial life first, before pivoting to another subject.

So based on what both Benedict and Musso say, we can tell that the third question was about

• Extraterrestrial Life

And the subject Benedict pivots to is the role of Christ and its cosmic implications. Since Benedict combined this answer with the one about alien life, the most natural read of this would be that the fourth question was about:

• Christ & Aliens

I’m relying on inference rather than direct statement for that, but that is the most logical inference given the facts we have.

I thus think that we can conclude the four questions were about:

• Polygenism
• Original Sin
• Extraterrestrial Life
• Christ & Aliens

Now, each of these are controversial subjects in some circles, and no matter what you say on them, you’ll make some people mad.

That’s definitely true of what we’re going to see Benedict say. It will definitely make some people mad.

But it doesn’t make me mad. I would have predicted what he says.

In fact, I’ve been pointing out the same possibilities for years.

I was surprised, though, that Benedict expresses a few things as definitely as he does, and he expresses at least one thing more definitely than I would have.

But to explain that, we need to read the letter.

 

The Letter’s Introduction

Benedict begins by saying:

Dear Professor,

The questions that you put to me in your letter, which arrived on 8 May, are difficult and are now in a new phase of study and interpretation. Just as the problem of geocentrism could be clarified only in a new context of the vision of the world and in a new understanding of the literary genres of Scripture, so also the questions proposed by you are in a phase of maturation which, at the moment, does not yet permit complete answers. Only with this reservation can I give first annotations on the problems.

Now, let’s go over that bit by bit. The first thing Benedict says is that “The questions that you put to me”—that is, on the four subjects we just covered—“are difficult.”

That means, they don’t have easy answers. So that—right there—should put certain people on notice of where we’re going.

If someone thinks that they have easy answers—like, “Of course, polygenism is impossible,” or “Of course, Church teaching on original sin is fully clear, with no questions left to answer,” or “Of course, there are no intelligent aliens”—then Benedict is going to disagree with you.

Those easy answers are precisely the kinds of things that Benedict is going to reject. That’s why he says these are difficult questions.

He also says that “they are now in a new phase of study”—meaning that they are currently being studied by theologians and churchmen in an attempt to find the difficult answers that these questions have.

He also says that these questions are in “a new phase of . . . interpretation”—meaning that they raise the issue of how certain things are interpreted and whether they need to be interpreted in a new way.

That is confirmed by what he says next, when he invokes the problem of geocentrism, or the view that the earth is at the center of the universe.

The description of it as a “problem” envisions it as an intellectual issue that needed to be solved, and one that did not have a clear and obvious answer at first.

He says that the problem of geocentrism could be clarified only in a new context of the vision of the world. That’s a reference to the understanding of the world that was suggested by scientific discoveries that changed our understanding of how the universe is structured.

He also says that geocentrism could only be clarified in the context of a new understanding of the literary genres of Scripture. That’s a reference to how the scientific discoveries made theologians and churchmen rethink what the biblical texts are actually trying to teach, which turns out to be theological matters rather than scientific matters.

The Bible wants to teach that God made and sustains the world, but it does not want to give a scientific account of how God made the world or how precisely it operates.

It took thus both scientific discoveries and discoveries about the proper interpretation of Scripture to ultimately solve the problem of geocentrism.

And this—by the way—is a statement that will not please the handful of fringe authors who hold that the Church teaches geocentrism, because that is plainly in conflict with what Benedict—and previous popes like John Paul II—have said on the subject.

In parallel to this historical controversy involving science and faith, Benedict then says, “so also the questions proposed by you are in a phase of maturation which, at the moment, does not yet permit complete answers.”

So, according to Benedict, we need to be patient. Just as it took careful studies of both science and Scripture to clarify the question of geocentrism, it will take the same thing to clarify the questions of polygenism, original sin, and extraterrestrial life.

Because the new contexts provided by scientific and Scriptural discoveries in our own age aren’t complete, we cannot yet give complete answers to these questions.

Benedict thus concludes the introduction to his letter by saying, “Only with this reservation can I give first annotations on the problems.”

The letter thus offers only first annotations—or first notes—on the questions of polygenism, original sin, and extraterrestrial life.

So let’s look at the notes he has to offer.

 

1. Polygenism

The term Polygenism comes from Greek roots. Polus means Many and Genos means Birth, Origin, so according to its roots, Polygenism means Origin from many.

In the history of thought, this term has been used in more than one way, but in contemporary Catholic discourse, it refers to the idea that humanity is descended from more than one original couple.

Either Adam and Eve were two people that were part of a broader group of people, or Adam and Eve were symbols of a broader group of people.

The alternative to polygenism is Monogenism. Monos means Only, Alone, Unique, One and Genos means Birth, Origin, so Monogenism means Origin from one couple alone.

The idea of biological evolution began to become common in the late 1700s—almost a century before Darwin. It led to a discussion of whether mankind’s origin should be explained in terms of monogenism or polygenism.

In 1950, Pope Pius XII published an encyclical called Humani Generis, in which he stated:

Humani Generis 36

The Magisterium of the Church does not forbid that the doctrine of “evolutionism,” insofar namely as it inquires into the origin of the human body as arising from matter already existing and living—for the Catholic faith commands us to hold that souls are created immediately by God—be treated, according to the present state of the human disciplines and of sacred theology, by investigations and disputations of men skilled in both fields.

So the “Magisterium . . . does not forbid” that the concept of evolution be discussed, as it applies to “the origin of the human body.”

Pius XII had no problem with the idea of evolution of other life forms. It was the biological evolution of the human body that he was concerned with.

And in 1950, he was quite tentative about it, though in 1996 Pope John Paul II announced that discoveries in a variety of fields in the previous half century had given the idea of human evolution a secure footing.

While Pius XII had been open to evolution as applied to the human body, he went on to say:

Humani Generis 37

But when it is a question of another conjectural opinion, namely of that which they call polygenism, then the sons of the Church by no means enjoy a liberty of this kind. For the Christian faithful cannot embrace that opinion whose holders assert either that after Adam true men existed on this earth who did not take their origin by natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam signifies a certain multitude of first parents; since it in no way appears how an opinion of this kind can be reconciled with those things which the sources of revealed truth and the acts of the Magisterium of the Church set forth concerning original sin, which proceeds from a sin truly committed by one Adam, and which, transfused into all by generation, is in each one as his own.

Now, some people—including a variety of apologists—have treated this as a statement that the Catholic faith requires the rejection of polygenism.

But that’s not what Pius XII was doing here. Papal encyclicals are written very carefully, and they have to be read very carefully.

What many miss is that there is a difference between doctrinal statements and regulatory statements.

There’s a difference between saying that something is false and saying that you’re not allowed to discuss and advocate it.

Saying something is false is doctrinal language, while saying you’re not allowed to advocate it is regulatory language.

And what Pius XII uses here is regulatory language. He says that “The Magisterium of the Church does not forbid” that the idea of the evolution of the human body “be treated” or discussed “by investigations and disputations of men skilled in both” “the human disciplines,” or natural science, and “sacred theology.”

In other words, the Magisterium lets scientists and theologians investigate and dispute the idea of human evolution.

That’s a regulation of what people can do, not a teaching that evolution is true or that it’s false.

He then says that when it comes to polygensim, Catholics “by no means enjoy a liberty of this kind.”

Again, that’s regulatory language. He’s saying that you don’t have the liberty to discuss and debate it the way you do the biological evolution of the human body.

Pope Pius then tells us why people didn’t have this liberty, saying that Christians can’t advocate the idea that some people weren’t descended from Adam or that Adam was a symbol of a larger group of people since—or because—“it in no way appears how an opinion of this kind can be reconciled with those things which the sources of revealed truth and the acts of the Magisterium of the Church set forth concerning original sin.”

In other words, Catholics don’t have the liberty to freely debate polygenism because it isn’t clear how this could be squared with the doctrine of original sin.

What this statement had the effect of doing was refocusing the discussion on original sin.

Humani Generis came out in 1950, so in the 1950s, theologians started discussing whether you could harmonize original sin with the idea of there being more than two original humans, and they ended up proposing several ways.

As a result, by the 1960s, the Vatican newspaper itself—L’Osservatore Romano—was publishing articles saying, “Here are ways you could square original sin with polygenism,” and the Magisterium started treating polygenism as something that could be discussed and debated.

Unlike most folks, I’ve made a careful study of that history. In fact, I wrote a book about it—and obtained an imprimatur for the book—though I haven’t published it.

If you’d like me to publish it, let me know in the comments.

Also, I’ve thought about devoting an episode of Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World to the question of polygenism, so if you’d like me to make one, let me know.

In any event, the Magisterium began treating polygenism as a legitimate subject of discussion. It wasn’t saying polygenism is true, but it was allowing people to debate it.

An example of that is seen in the publication in 2004 of a document by the International Theological Commission called Communion and Stewardship.

The International Theological Commission is a theological advisory body run by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—now the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Its job is to write theological position papers that may be of use to the DDF and to theologians more broadly.

And you can see how they handled issues related to polygenism in Communion and Stewardship. They stated:

Communion and Stewardship 43

Every individual human being as well as the whole human community are created in the image of God. In its original unity—of which Adam is the symbol—the human race is made in the image of the divine Trinity. Willed by God, it makes its way through the vicissitudes of human history towards a perfect communion, also willed by God, but yet to be fully realized.

The important part of that is the statement that Adam is the symbol of the original unity of the human race.

Now, that doesn’t mean that Adam is only a symbol. He also could be a historical individual. The text doesn’t settle that question.

And that’s the point. It doesn’t settle the question of whether or not Adam is a historic individual who was also a symbol of mankind’s original unity, but it does understand him as a symbol.

And they’re not challenging the scientific understanding of how mankind arose. Elsewhere in the document, they say:

Communion and Stewardship 63

While the story of human origins is complex and subject to revision, physical anthropology and molecular biology combine to make a convincing case for the origin of the human species in Africa about 150,000 years ago in a humanoid population of common genetic lineage.

So the ITC says there is a convincing case for the origin of the human species in Africa about 150,000 years ago in a humanoid population.

The fact that the text doesn’t settle the historical individual question is made clear later in the document, where it says:

Communion and Stewardship 70

Catholic theology affirms that the emergence of the first members of the human species (whether as individuals or in populations) represents an event that is not susceptible of a purely natural explanation and which can appropriately be attributed to divine intervention.

The important part of that is where it describes the emergence of the first members of the human species either as individuals or in populations.

So the ITC is open to both the idea that the first humans were either individuals—Adam and Eve—or a broader population. In other words, they’re open to both monogenism and polygenism.

Now, the International Theological Commission is not an organ of the Magisterium. It’s an advisory commission that works for the Magisterium.

And it’s only allowed to publish its documents on the condition that the Magisterium does not have a problem with what they say. That’s in the ITC’s operating rules. They have to submit their conclusions to the pope and the DDF, and they only get to publish them on the condition that the Holy See does not have “any difficulty” with them.

Well, in 2004, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was Joseph Ratzinger. He was also the head of the International Theological Commission, and so in the preliminary note for Communion and Stewardship, we read:

Communion and Stewardship, preliminary note

As the text developed, it was discussed at numerous meetings of the subcommission and several plenary sessions of the International Theological Commission held at Rome during the period 2000-2002. The present text was approved in forma specifica, by the written ballots of the International Theological Commission. It was then submitted to Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the President of the Commission, who has given his permission for its publication.

So Joseph Ratzinger himself approved this document for publication, indicating that the Holy See did not have any difficulty with it, even though it was open to both monogenism and polygenism.

And it isn’t just him. I also have statements from other heads of the CDF—like Cardinal Gerhard Muller and Cardinal Luis Ladaria—also indicating openness to polygenism.

So with CDF prefects like Ratzinger, Muller, and Ladaria being open to polygenism, it’s not a surprise when we read Benedict’s answer to Musso’s first question. Benedict writes:

Ad 1: The question of monogenism and polygenism (only one couple or a small group) was discussed extensively in the 1950s. After the Second Vatican Council, theological interest moved to other areas; as far as I know, the discussion has not been pursued any further. At that time polygenism was not excluded absolutely. It remains fundamental, however, that there exists only one human race and [that] all men are men in the same sense. A fundamental intention of the doctrine of the one Adam is precisely this: the defense of the unity of the human being and thus the defense of the equal dignity and of the metaphysical fraternity of all men.

So Benedict notes that “The question of monogenism and polygenism (only one couple or a small group) was discussed extensively in the 1950s” but that “After the Second Vatican Council, theological interest moved to other areas.”

The important thing he says for this question is that “At that time polygenism was not excluded absolutely.”

In other words, as a result of the discussion that followed the 1950 publication of Humani Generis, polygenism was not excluded absolutely, so both it and monogenism have been subsequently discussed—as illustrated by Cardinal Ratzinger’s approval of Communion and Stewardship in 2004 and in statements by Cardinals Muller and Ladaria.

However, Benedict set bounds on this question, stating that it remains fundamental that there exists only one human race and that all men are men in the same sense.

That’s a reference to some of the older discussions of polygenism. In the 19th century, the concept was sometimes used by racists to claim that the different races had different origins—for example, there was a white Adam and Eve, a black Adam and Eve, an Asian Adam and Eve—and that the races weren’t all equally human.

That’s why Benedict stresses that there exists only one human race and that all men are men in the same sense.

So—whether you think that there was one original human couple or not—there’s just one race, and we’re all equal, meaning that “Love your neighbor as yourself” requires all of us to love our fellow human beings equally. You can’t exclude or downgrade certain people.

Benedict thus concludes that a fundamental intention of the doctrine of the one Adam is precisely this: the defense of the unity of the human being and thus the defense of the equal dignity and of the metaphysical fraternity of all men.

And, as long as that is maintained, it would be possible to hold that there were more than just two first parents since, as Benedict says polygenism is not excluded absolutely.

 

2. Original Sin

The second question Musso asked was about original sin, and I really wish we know how he had posed it.

Benedict said a good bit about original sin, especially before he was pope, and the question has multiple aspects. But without knowing exactly which ones Musso asked about, it’s harder to know exactly what Benedict is responding to here.

Nevertheless, here’s what he writes:

Ad 2: The discussion of the second problem proposed by you has only just begun. I think that the thesis of His Most Reverend Excellency Archbishop Léonard, Archbishop of Brussels, shows the right path: original sin is not a simple empirical act on a certain date and in a certain empirical place. This fundamental fact precedes empirical history and determines it. How to define such a meta-empirical “fact” is all still to be discussed. I think that Archbishop Léonard could answer these questions better.

Andre-Joseph Leonard was the archbishop of Brussels and the primate of Belgium until his retirement in 2015. He’s still alive, and he’s known as a theological conservative.

In fact, one of his nicknames is “The Belgian Ratzinger”—and he’s known for his writing about original sin.

He discusses this in his apologetics book The Reasons for Believing, and we’ll come back to that.

But for the moment note that Benedict says that the discussion of the problem of original sin has only just begun—meaning that there’s a lot of work yet to do on this question and how it is to be understood.

He then says that the thesis of Archbishop Leonard shows the right path.

That means that he thinks that what Archbishop Leonard has proposed is fundamentally in the right direction. It doesn’t mean that everything the archbishop has proposed is accurate, but that Benedict thinks that his fundamental proposal is good.

Benedict then identifies the particular element of Leonard’s proposal that he thinks is good: It’s the idea that original sin is not a simple empirical act on a certain date and in a certain empirical place.

This means that original sin should not be conceived of as an event that occurred in a specific time and place, like at 3:06 p.m. on Tuesday, November 1st, 4004 B.C. on the proleptic Julian calendar, just outside of Basrah, Iraq.

Instead, Archbishop Leonard proposes:

Reasons for Believing, p. 238

Between the world before the sin of Adam and the world after the first sin, there is a qualitative discontinuity; one must therefore not picture the original fall as taking place inside the present world. The sin of Adam is precisely at the origin of the present condition of man and of the world insofar as they are infected by evil.

So, according to Archbishop Leonard, one must not picture the original fall as taking place inside the present world.

He proposes that

Reasons for Believing, p. 239

Adam and his sin are not to be situated inside our universe with the physical and biological laws that we presently know it to have.

Instead, he says that:

Reasons for Believing, pp. 251-252

Our hypothesis amounts . . . to placing Adam and Eve in a real preternatural world, but one not coinciding with the present universe, somewhat as we situate the risen New Adam and the glorified New Eve in a real new world, but one not overlapping our cosmos.

And that:

Reasons for Believing, p. 253

The consequence of the sin of Adam is then precisely that the whole of the preternatural universe falls and becomes, from the initial big bang until today, this universe such as we know it, handed over to the irreversibility of time and to the laws of life and death of a nature abandoned to its own resources.

So the consequence of the sin of Adam is that the whole universe falls and becomes, from the initial big bang until today, this universe such as we know it.

This is similar to a proposal made by Cardinal Hans Urs von Balthasar. In his book A Theological Anthropology, he proposed that the fall of man might have had effects both before and after it took place. He writes:

A Theological Anthropology, p. 90

A metaphysical point at which this human decision occurs is therefore theoretically necessary but is not historically demonstrable. One might, however, raise the question whether this point does not exist above the whole temporal unfolding of the material cosmogonic process.

He then appeals to a proposal made by

A Theological Anthropology, p. 91

Gregory of Nyssa, according to whom God, foreseeing human sin, gave man his biological (sexual) concupiscence. This would mean that man’s negative decision flowed into the process of “hominization,” which preceded it in time.

In other words, St. Gregory of Nyssa proposed that because God foresaw human sin, he built sinful tendencies like biological or sexual concupiscence into human nature so that man’s sin—his negative decision affected the course of human development which preceded it in time.

For von Balthasar, the sin of Adam is thus a trans-historical event that determined the shape of history both before and after it.

Both von Balthasar and Leonard propose that Adam’s sin affected the course of universal history. What’s different is that Leonard puts Adam in a real but preternatural world that existed before our universe, while von Balthasar keeps him in our universe.

Of the two, Benedict proposes Leonard’s idea, saying that it strikes him as showing the right path. That doesn’t mean he rejects von Balthasar’s similar proposal, but it does mean he thinks Leonard is on the right track.

And he definitely agrees with the idea that Adam’s sin was a trans-historical event, saying “This fundamental fact precedes empirical history and determines it.”

However, he acknowledges that precisely how we should understand this is an open question, saying that “How to define such a meta-empirical ‘fact’ is all still to be discussed.”

And he concludes by saying, “I think that Archbishop Léonard could answer these questions better”—which reminds me of the moment in the Star Trek episode “Devil in the Dark” where Mr. Spock says:

Mr. Scott has far more knowledge of nuclear reactors than I do.

Always nice to see geniuses having the humility to acknowledge that someone else still has greater expertise in particular areas.

In any event, Benedict at least provisionally supports the idea that original sin should not be understood as a normal historical event but one that took place in a different way and that determined the whole course of history.

 

3. Extraterrestrial Life

Now we come to what Benedict said about aliens, and this will very much displease those who hold that alien life must be impossible and that therefore all aliens must really be demons in disguise. He writes:

Ad 3 and 4: These problems, too, were discussed intensely in the 1950s. The great English writer and theologian C. S. Lewis wrote a novel (or perhaps a trilogy of novels) on this theme. I personally think that, as long as nothing serious is known about traces of life on other planets, there is not much sense in discussing the problem.

1. S. Lewis would have disagreed with the idea he was a theologian, but he did write the famous Space Trilogy of books that deal with how extraterrestrial life could be understood from a Christian perspective.

In particular, he deals with races that have not fallen into sin in Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, which deal with intelligent races on Mars and Venus, respectively.

Here Benedict says that, when it comes to intelligent aliens, These problems, too, were discussed intensely in the 1950s in theological circles, and he doesn’t say that theologians concluded that aliens are impossible or that they must all be demons.

Still less does he say that the Church has mandated these views.

Instead, he says that he personally thinks that . . . there is not much sense in discussing the problem at the moment, and he gives a specific reason.

The reason he thinks that the subject doesn’t presently need much discussion is that nothing serious is known about life on other planets.

Got that? Nothing serious is known about life on other planets.

In other words, we don’t know one way or another whether it exists—which is what I’ve been saying for years.

And what Benedict says definitely won’t please those who falsely claim that the Church teaches that there can be no intelligent alien life.

Sometimes they claim that the Catechism requires this idea, but—guess what—the greatest theological mind in our generation of churchmen, the former pope, and the very man who oversaw the writing of the Catechism disagrees.

He says, “We don’t know if alien life exists or not.”

And we don’t. The Church does not have a teaching on this, one way or the other, and science hasn’t yet established whether aliens exist.

That means that Benedict held the view that it is possible intelligent aliens do exist, and we need to wait and see if we ever get solid evidence that they do.

It seems that Benedict’s personal thought that it isn’t worth discussing this issue much is not shared by everyone.

I get tons of questions about intelligent aliens, and—while I always point out that I don’t even know if aliens exist—I do my best to answer them.

And I do think there is value in these discussions, because it’s something people wonder about, and we don’t want people thinking that the Christian faith will somehow be threatened if we ever get solid evidence of aliens.

In fact, we know right now that there are some strange things going on in the skies. Even those who think it’s all demons acknowledge that. And the U.S. government programs looking at UFOs or UAPs acknowledge that they don’t know what all of the things they’re seeing are.

They might be purely terrestrial—or they might not be. And this is something that has become more prominent in the public mind since Benedict wrote the letter in 2014.

It wasn’t until 2017 that the New York Times published an article about the government’s UAP efforts and the UAP videos that have been released.

I thus think it’s a good idea for people to be thinking about this subject in advance so that—if we ever do get solid evidence of aliens, people won’t think that this somehow disproves the Christian faith.

But—for a theologian like Benedict, who doesn’t regularly answer questions from the public and was writing in 2014—I can see how this wouldn’t be the highest priority, especially since we can’t reach any firm conclusions until such time as we had some specific aliens to consider.

 

4. Christ & Aliens

In his answers to questions 3 and 4, Benedict then pivots to a new subject. Having discussed the possibility of intelligent aliens, he says:

One thing is certain: the apostolic letters of the New Testament tell us clearly that the triumph of Christ embraces the entire cosmos (1 Pet 3:[22]; Eph 1:20–21; Col 1:15ff.). In the 1950s Father Jean Daniélou wrote a small book on the vision of the Fathers regarding the cosmic victory of Christ, [The Angels and Their Mission].

Let’s take a look at the passages that Benedict cites. They include 1 Peter 3:22, which says:

1 Peter 3:22

[Jesus Christ] has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

Ephesians 1:20-21 says:

Ephesians 1:20-21

[God] worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.

And Colossians 1, starting at verse 15, says:

Colossians 1:15-16, 19-20

[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. . . . For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

These passages certainly speak of the cosmic significance of Christ’s triumph, since he is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him, since he is seated at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and since all things were created through him and for him and he reconciled to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven by his cross.

Benedict thus says that it is certain that the apostolic letters of the New Testament tell us clearly that the triumph of Christ embraces the entire cosmos

What this doesn’t do is answer all the questions we might have about the implications of this cosmic triumph—like whether there are aliens, and if they are fallen creatures like we are, and if God has chosen to save them, and if God has chosen to save them through the death of Jesus here on earth.

It might mean that, but there are other possibilities as well.

Benedict also recommends another book at this point, saying, “In the 1950s Father Jean Daniélou wrote a small book on the vision of the Fathers regarding the cosmic victory of Christ.”

That book has been published in English as The Angels and Their Mission, and in it, Fr. Danielou presents Christ’s Ascension after the Crucifixion as the decisive act that restores mankind to the fellowship of the angels.

It thus deals with the cosmic implications of Christ’s victory.

 

Conclusion

Benedict closes his letter by writing:

I hope that these hints can be a first help for your reflections.

Yours in the Lord,

Benedict XVI

So he presents his responses only as hints that can be a first help in considering these questions.

They are not definitive answers. And—in fact—Benedict didn’t try to settle almost anything in his letter.

He did say that it’s certain that Christ’s triumph has cosmic significance, but otherwise he only expressed openness.

• On Polygenism, he said that it had not been excluded absolutely, meaning both monogenism and polygenism are possible.
• On Original Sin, he said discussion of it has only just begun, and he recommended the proposal of Archbishop Leonard that it be understood as a trans-historical choice that has shaped the history of the world.
• On Extraterrestrial Intelligence, he said that we don’t know if there is life on other planets or not, and he recommended the works of C.S. Lewis.
• And on Christ & Aliens, he said that Christ’s triumph definitely has cosmic significance and recommended a book by Fr. Jean Danielou, but he did not go into all of the implications of Christ’s triumph for any other intelligent creatures that might exist.

In each of these Benedict thus held a position of openness, which is exactly what I would have predicted based on my knowledge of his thought—and of Church teaching.

I was a little surprised that he supported the trans-historical understanding of original sin as strongly as he did, and I personally would have gone into the range of possible implications that Christ’s victory may or may not have for other races a little more.

But Benedict landed where I expected—however much it may displease some folks.

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