Surely not!

Catholic World News regales us today with the following headline:

Pope speaks on St. Paulinus, precursor of Vatican II

Eewww.

So the whole purpose of St. Paulinus’ life was to point to Vatican II, as some kind of Teilhardian ‘omega point’? I’m sure the Holy Father didn’t say that, and Melancholicus is simply reading into the story owing to the utterly inappropriate headline given to this news item by the unnamed CWN reporter.

With all due respect to the Holy Father, however, Melancholicus would say that to compare St. Paulinus of Nola with Vatican II is to do St. Paulinus a great disservice. We wouldn’t wish to identify him with the robber-council of Ephesus now, would we, so what profit is there to be had from mentioning the good saint in the same breath as Ephesus’ spiritual descendant?

Regular readers of Infelix Ego will have noticed by now the strong animus Melancholicus has against Vatican II. He makes absolutely no apology for this stance. Truth is, Vatican II defined no new doctrine binding on the Catholic faithful; those teachings of Vatican II that are binding were binding already before the council, so they are not unique to this single council, having been defined better elsewhere. What is unique in Vatican II is the plethora of non-binding and non-doctrinal novelties to which no Catholic is obliged to give assent. Therefore Melancholicus can be AS RUDE AS HE LIKES towards the Second Vatican Council without fear of either heresy or schism.

So there!