Well, I'm thinking it's a crying shame that God didn't bother to mention this when he was penning the old bible. I may have found that reasonably convincing (at least believable that the bible wasn't written by a few stone age peasants 2,000 years ago) if there were a couple of paragraphs in there along the lines of "oh yes, and I stuck some life on a couple of other planets too. These are the coordinates... Not that these will mean anything to you for a couple of thousand years, but heyho"

Or maybe he did and the Nicene wotsit decided against its inclusion because it was obviously heretical. Shows what they knew.

On a slightly more serious note, I think the vatican is concerned that we may find evidence of extraterrestrial life and that this will be another nail in the coffin for religion. Hence, they go out of their way to prepare a defence. It's pathetic IMHO.