Christianity on Mars with Fr. Andrew Pinsent

Christianity has spent two thousand years adapting to new cultures, continents, and ways of living. But what happens when the frontier is no longer Earth at all?

In the finale of our Religion on Mars series, Joe Sweeney turns to Christianity — the world’s most practiced religion, with close to 2.6 billion followers and tens of thousands of denominations — to ask how this faith might function on the Red Planet. To keep the conversation grounded, this episode focuses on Catholicism, one of Christianity’s oldest and largest traditions, with a global presence stretching from small rural parishes to the Vatican itself.

Joe is joined by Father Andrew Pinsent, a Catholic priest, physicist, and philosopher, to explore how Christian belief, ritual, and authority might adapt in an off-world environment. Together, they discuss questions future Martian settlers would inevitably face: How do the sacraments work in space? What role do priests play when communication with Earth is delayed by minutes? How does Catholicism understand community, embodiment, and meaning in extreme isolation?

The conversation also touches on Christianity’s long history of responding to unfamiliar and challenging environments, from deserts and monasteries to oceans and frontiers, and what that history suggests about faith beyond Earth. And stick around to the end, where Joe and Father Pinsent reflect on a question that lingers throughout the episode: how might Jesus himself feel about the idea of humans settling Mars?

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