Vatican Librarian Discovers Pre-Conciliar Magisterium

(Vatican City) Vatican officials confirmed reports today that a librarian has discovered a large number of ancient handwritten and crudely printed texts containing what appears to be pre-Conciliar "magisterial teachings."

The Magisterium of the Catholic Church, consisting of 16 conciliar documents, the 1992 Catechism and the various letters, exhortations and encyclicals of all six popes, is the basis for the faith of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics. If authentic, the sensational find could push back the origins of the Catholic Church decades, if not centuries.

Project leader Msgr. Culetto said researchers have only begun to explore the 52 miles of shelving discovered last week when a librarian stumbled upon a sealed doorway behind the bookcase in his office. "Many of the texts appear to be written in a very crude form of Italian," said Culetto, "so we have high hopes that they can be deciphered." But he warned that it could take years before any texts are released to the public, assuaging fears that the discovery could upset plans for the 2015 Synod. "All the documents appear to have been written long before 1958, so we can be certain that they don't contain anything relevant to the life of the Church today," said Culetto.