Father José Gabriel Funes SJ

Argentine Jesuit priest and astronomer who served as director of the Vatican Observatory from 2006-2015 (predecessor to Consolmagno). In a landmark 2008 interview with L'Osservatore Romano — the official Vatican newspaper — titled 'The Alien Is My Brother,' Funes stated that believing in extraterrestrial life does not contradict faith in God. He said it was possible that other intelligent beings could exist as part of God's creation and that they could even be free from original sin. This was widely interpreted as the Vatican officially opening the door to the existence of non-human intelligence. Under his leadership, the Vatican Observatory hosted a 2009 astrobiology conference bringing together scientists from NASA, ESA, and international universities to discuss the search for life beyond Earth — the Vatican actively studying the question, not just tolerating it.