Medieval? Nonsense. It goes back to the Bronze Age; heck, it goes back to the dawn of humanity.
But don't be a temporally narrow-minded or chronologically provincial. What matters is not "Is it old?" or "Is it new?" but "Is it true?"
There are more things in this universe that might be, i.e. in the realm of the possible, than are or ever will be. To simply assert something is so, even if you do it in what you regard is a pleasantly aesthetic fashion, does not make it true.
Just because the pope declares something to be so makes it no truer (even if you're moved by his declaration) than a well done stage performance of Peter Pan proves that somewhere in the world there were once pre-pubescent children who could fly.