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Reginald Foster (Latinist)

February 26, 2023

Reginald Thomas Foster OCD (November 14, 1939 – December 25, 2020) was an American Catholic priest and friar of the Order of Discalced Carmelites. From 1970 until his retirement in 2009, he worked in the Latin Letters section of the Secretariat of State in the Vatican. He was an expert in Latin literature and an influential teacher of Latin, including 30 years at the Gregorian University, Teresianum, Urbanianum in Rome and free summer courses that continued when he retired to Milwaukee.

The Reverend

Reginald Foster

OCD
Born
Reginald Thomas Foster

(1939-11-14)November 14, 1939
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.
DiedDecember 25, 2020(2020-12-25) (aged 81)
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Priest, Latinist

Life and career

Foster grew up in a family of plumbers (his father, brothers, and uncles were plumbers), and entered seminary at 13; he said that he wanted three things: "to be a priest, to be a Carmelite, and to do Latin".[1] At 15, he went to junior seminary in Peterborough, New Hampshire, where he fell in love with Latin; he joined the Carmelites in 1959.[2]

In 1962, Foster went to Rome to study. In 1970, at the recommendation of Carlo Egger and despite the objections of the Procurator General of his Order, he succeeded Monsignor Amleto Tondini in the Latin Letters Office (until Vatican II known as Secretarius Brevium ad Principes or Briefs to Princes), the first American to be one of the Papal Latin secretaries.[1][3][4] He worked there for forty years, returning to Milwaukee in 2009 upon his retirement.[5]

Foster lived in Rome in an ascetic manner, sleeping on the floor under a thin blanket, giving away all gifts except books. Instead of wearing the clerical garb, which he believed no longer corresponded to the dress of poor people, he instead donned blue pants and shirts from Sears, with plain black sneakers and a blue polyester windbreaker in cold weather. The Swiss Guards called him il benzinaio (the gas-station attendant), and there were complaints about his appearance.[1]

In addition to his full-time work as a Papal secretary, Foster also served as a priest, tutored students, and had a weekly program on Vatican Radio, The Latin Lover.[6] Starting in 1977, he taught ten Latin courses a year at the Gregorian University in Rome. In 1985, responding to student requests, he added an eight-week summer school with classes meeting seven days a week. The summer school was free; the university fired him in 2006 for allowing too many students to take his classes there without paying.[1][4] As a result, in November 2006 Foster founded his own free Academia Romae Latinitatis, also known as the Istituto Ganganelli, which as of 2007 was housed at Piazza Venezia in Rome.[3]

In 2008 Foster collapsed in class and had to be hospitalized; he was flown back to the United States, where he received further treatment in a nursing home in Greenfield, Wisconsin, initially on hiatus from his position.[7] He resumed giving free Latin classes at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,[8] and later taught in his nursing home.[1]

Foster died in Milwaukee on December 25, 2020, at the age of 81.[2][9] He had tested positive for COVID-19.[10]

Latin

Foster was an expert in Latin literature, especially Cicero, and was an internationally recognized authority on the Latin language.[11] He taught Latin as a living language and influenced many Latinists;[1][12] Nancy Llewellyn was inspired by Foster to found Septentrionale Americanum Latinitatis Vivae Institutum (SALVI), the North American Institute of Living Latin Studies, in 1997, and two former students, Jason Pedicone and Eric Hewett, in 2010 revived his summer school in Rome as Living Latin in Rome, a program for college students, and have founded a non-profit organization, the Paideia Institute, which now also sponsors courses in other countries and in Greek, as well as elementary-school programs in the US.[1] Foster headed the effort to produce a modern Latin dictionary, Lexicon Recentis Latinitatis, published in 1992–1997.[13] After retiring, he published The Mere Bones of Latin (Ossa Latinitatis Sola) with the Catholic University of America Press in 2016; a second volume is forthcoming.[1][14]

Foster was a strict teacher,[7] a "brash curmudgeon" to his students,[15] warning them "if you make one stupid mistake, you're out!";[16] he sometimes assigned a translation of a bawdy text to a pious sister, and a text from St. Augustine or Pope St. Leo the Great to an atheist or a Jew.[17] A former student quoted him dismissing theory and warning his students: "I don't care about your garbage literary theory! ... If you don't know what time of day it is, or what your name is, or where you are, don't try Latin because it will smear you on the wall like an oil spot."[1]

Foster's pedagogy was entirely unorthodox. He eschewed the memorization of paradigms—to the point of forbidding students from memorizing lists of grammatical forms and vocabulary; rather, his method consisted of incrementally mastering the structure and vocabulary of the language by breaking down grammar into tiny, discrete concepts that could be immediately grasped and recognized by most students with little additional explanation. Examples included how to say "and" in Latin, or the second-person plural perfect form of a certain class of verbs and its meaning. Then, using chrestomathies of diverse Latin texts compiled by himself, Foster invited students to search for and identify the grammatical form under consideration. In this way, students were exposed, from day one, to genuine Latin literature rather than dry paradigms and tedious, rudimentary constructions. Finally, each lesson was reinforced through protracted homework assignments that often require many hours to complete.[citation needed]

Key to Foster's pedagogy and success was his visceral and infectious love for the Latin language, "a precious thing here on Planet Earth," as he liked to say. Even in large classes of over 100 students, Foster learned the names of his students and directed each one's progress with care, publicly praising and upbraiding them in order to motivate them to learn.[citation needed]

Foster condemned what he saw as a decline in Latin teaching;[15] his effort to revive the language is the subject of a chapter in Alexander Stille's book The Future of the Past, where he is described as "a one-man Audubon Society for the Latin language, determined to save it from extinction."[1] However, he was against returning to the Latin liturgy, saying that it "makes the Vatican look a bit medieval"; Foster instead thought that a better example would be for Benedict XVI to announce that he would read Latin in his Vatican quarters.[3]

Media reception

Foster's position gave him more freedom to speak out than most priests, and he was sought out by journalists. He once responded to a question about Latin as a "sacred language": "In the first century every prostitute in Rome spoke it fluently—and much better than most people in the Roman Curia", and he was misquoted by the Minnesota Star Tribune as saying: "I like to say mass in the nude".[1] He is one of the subjects of Michael Sheridan's Romans, published in 1995.[18] In 2008, shortly before his retirement, Foster was interviewed outside the Vatican by Bill Maher in the documentary film Religulous, and agreed with statements about the Vatican being "at odds with the message of Jesus", leading to complaints.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Kuhner, John Byron (March 2017). "The Vatican's Latinist". The New Criterion.
  2. ^ a b Fox, Margalit (December 27, 2020). "Reginald Foster, Vatican Latinist Who Tweeted in the Language, Dies at 81". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 27, 2020.
  3. ^ a b c Fraser, Christian (January 28, 2007). "Latinist laments 'dying language'". BBC. Retrieved April 10, 2009.
  4. ^ a b "Famous Latinist fired from Gregorian University, announces new school". Catholic News Agency. October 18, 2006. Retrieved April 10, 2009.
  5. ^ Thavis, John (September 18, 2009). "Recovering Milwaukee priest leaves hole in Latin office in the Vatican". Catholic Herald. Archdiocese of Milwaukee. Retrieved March 5, 2017.
  6. ^ "Vatican gives Latin online boost". BBC News. May 10, 2008.
  7. ^ a b Breitenbucher, Cathy (October 15, 2009). "'Don't waste a moment being upset'". Catholic Herald. Archdiocese of Milwaukee.
  8. ^ McCarthy, Daniel (February 10, 2017). "Latin Summer 2017 with Reginald Foster". The Latin Language.org. Retrieved March 5, 2017.
  9. ^ "A Natale la scomparsa del latinista padre Reginald Foster". Vatican News (in Italian). December 26, 2020. Retrieved December 26, 2020.
  10. ^ Torres, Ricardo (December 27, 2020). "Reginald Foster, 81, maintained Milwaukee roots while serving four popes as Vatican's foremost Latin authority". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Retrieved December 27, 2020.
  11. ^ Levy, Clifford J. (May 29, 2004). "Forget 'Hic, Haec, Hoc.' Try 'O Tempora! O Lingua!'". The New York Times. Retrieved April 10, 2009.
  12. ^ Parsons, Claudia (July 21, 2004). . Reuters. Archived from the original on August 4, 2004.
  13. ^ "Roman Rebound: So you thought that irksome language was dead?". The Economist. December 18, 2003.
  14. ^ Foster, Reginaldus Thomas; McCarthy, Daniel Patricius (2016). Ossa Latinitatis Sola Ad Mentem Reginaldi Rationemque (The Mere Bones of Latin According to the Thought and System of Reginald). Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press. ISBN 9780813228327.
  15. ^ a b Lyman, Eric J. (April 22, 2005) [April 21, 2005]. "Vatican's Latin expert no stuffy academic". USA Today.
  16. ^ Lowe, Mike (November 22, 2010). . Milwaukee: WITI (TV) Fox 6. Archived from the original on July 11, 2011.
  17. ^ Levy, Clifford J. (May 29, 2004). "The Saturday Profile: Forget 'Hic, Haec, Hoc.' Try 'O Tempora! O Lingua!'". The New York Times.
  18. ^ Sheridan, Michael (May 9, 1994). "Last rites for a dying language". The Independent.

Sources

  • Walker, Katie (December 25, 2020). "The Pope's Latin teacher". The Oldie.
  • Stille, Alexander (2002). The Future of the Past: How the Information Age Threatens to Destroy our Cultural Heritage. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374159771.
  • Foster, Reginald (December 27, 2008). Latin 'would make Pope speak less'. Today (audio, 6 mins). BBC News.

External links

  • Personal website
Preceded by Papal Latinist
1969–2009 		Succeeded by
Daniel Gallagher

February 26, 2023
reginald, foster, latinist, reginald, thomas, foster, november, 1939, december, 2020, american, catholic, priest, friar, order, discalced, carmelites, from, 1970, until, retirement, 2009, worked, latin, letters, section, secretariat, state, vatican, expert, la. Reginald Thomas Foster OCD November 14 1939 December 25 2020 was an American Catholic priest and friar of the Order of Discalced Carmelites From 1970 until his retirement in 2009 he worked in the Latin Letters section of the Secretariat of State in the Vatican He was an expert in Latin literature and an influential teacher of Latin including 30 years at the Gregorian University Teresianum Urbanianum in Rome and free summer courses that continued when he retired to Milwaukee The ReverendReginald FosterOCDBornReginald Thomas Foster 1939 11 14 November 14 1939Milwaukee Wisconsin U S DiedDecember 25 2020 2020 12 25 aged 81 Milwaukee Wisconsin U S NationalityAmericanOccupation s Priest Latinist Contents 1 Life and career 2 Latin 3 Media reception 4 References 5 Sources 6 External linksLife and career EditFoster grew up in a family of plumbers his father brothers and uncles were plumbers and entered seminary at 13 he said that he wanted three things to be a priest to be a Carmelite and to do Latin 1 At 15 he went to junior seminary in Peterborough New Hampshire where he fell in love with Latin he joined the Carmelites in 1959 2 In 1962 Foster went to Rome to study In 1970 at the recommendation of Carlo Egger and despite the objections of the Procurator General of his Order he succeeded Monsignor Amleto Tondini in the Latin Letters Office until Vatican II known as Secretarius Brevium ad Principes or Briefs to Princes the first American to be one of the Papal Latin secretaries 1 3 4 He worked there for forty years returning to Milwaukee in 2009 upon his retirement 5 Foster lived in Rome in an ascetic manner sleeping on the floor under a thin blanket giving away all gifts except books Instead of wearing the clerical garb which he believed no longer corresponded to the dress of poor people he instead donned blue pants and shirts from Sears with plain black sneakers and a blue polyester windbreaker in cold weather The Swiss Guards called him il benzinaio the gas station attendant and there were complaints about his appearance 1 In addition to his full time work as a Papal secretary Foster also served as a priest tutored students and had a weekly program on Vatican Radio The Latin Lover 6 Starting in 1977 he taught ten Latin courses a year at the Gregorian University in Rome In 1985 responding to student requests he added an eight week summer school with classes meeting seven days a week The summer school was free the university fired him in 2006 for allowing too many students to take his classes there without paying 1 4 As a result in November 2006 Foster founded his own free Academia Romae Latinitatis also known as the Istituto Ganganelli which as of 2007 was housed at Piazza Venezia in Rome 3 In 2008 Foster collapsed in class and had to be hospitalized he was flown back to the United States where he received further treatment in a nursing home in Greenfield Wisconsin initially on hiatus from his position 7 He resumed giving free Latin classes at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee 8 and later taught in his nursing home 1 Foster died in Milwaukee on December 25 2020 at the age of 81 2 9 He had tested positive for COVID 19 10 Latin EditFoster was an expert in Latin literature especially Cicero and was an internationally recognized authority on the Latin language 11 He taught Latin as a living language and influenced many Latinists 1 12 Nancy Llewellyn was inspired by Foster to found Septentrionale Americanum Latinitatis Vivae Institutum SALVI the North American Institute of Living Latin Studies in 1997 and two former students Jason Pedicone and Eric Hewett in 2010 revived his summer school in Rome as Living Latin in Rome a program for college students and have founded a non profit organization the Paideia Institute which now also sponsors courses in other countries and in Greek as well as elementary school programs in the US 1 Foster headed the effort to produce a modern Latin dictionary Lexicon Recentis Latinitatis published in 1992 1997 13 After retiring he published The Mere Bones of Latin Ossa Latinitatis Sola with the Catholic University of America Press in 2016 a second volume is forthcoming 1 14 Foster was a strict teacher 7 a brash curmudgeon to his students 15 warning them if you make one stupid mistake you re out 16 he sometimes assigned a translation of a bawdy text to a pious sister and a text from St Augustine or Pope St Leo the Great to an atheist or a Jew 17 A former student quoted him dismissing theory and warning his students I don t care about your garbage literary theory If you don t know what time of day it is or what your name is or where you are don t try Latin because it will smear you on the wall like an oil spot 1 Foster s pedagogy was entirely unorthodox He eschewed the memorization of paradigms to the point of forbidding students from memorizing lists of grammatical forms and vocabulary rather his method consisted of incrementally mastering the structure and vocabulary of the language by breaking down grammar into tiny discrete concepts that could be immediately grasped and recognized by most students with little additional explanation Examples included how to say and in Latin or the second person plural perfect form of a certain class of verbs and its meaning Then using chrestomathies of diverse Latin texts compiled by himself Foster invited students to search for and identify the grammatical form under consideration In this way students were exposed from day one to genuine Latin literature rather than dry paradigms and tedious rudimentary constructions Finally each lesson was reinforced through protracted homework assignments that often require many hours to complete citation needed Key to Foster s pedagogy and success was his visceral and infectious love for the Latin language a precious thing here on Planet Earth as he liked to say Even in large classes of over 100 students Foster learned the names of his students and directed each one s progress with care publicly praising and upbraiding them in order to motivate them to learn citation needed Foster condemned what he saw as a decline in Latin teaching 15 his effort to revive the language is the subject of a chapter in Alexander Stille s book The Future of the Past where he is described as a one man Audubon Society for the Latin language determined to save it from extinction 1 However he was against returning to the Latin liturgy saying that it makes the Vatican look a bit medieval Foster instead thought that a better example would be for Benedict XVI to announce that he would read Latin in his Vatican quarters 3 Media reception EditFoster s position gave him more freedom to speak out than most priests and he was sought out by journalists He once responded to a question about Latin as a sacred language In the first century every prostitute in Rome spoke it fluently and much better than most people in the Roman Curia and he was misquoted by the Minnesota Star Tribune as saying I like to say mass in the nude 1 He is one of the subjects of Michael Sheridan s Romans published in 1995 18 In 2008 shortly before his retirement Foster was interviewed outside the Vatican by Bill Maher in the documentary film Religulous and agreed with statements about the Vatican being at odds with the message of Jesus leading to complaints 1 References Edit a b c d e f g h i j k l Kuhner John Byron March 2017 The Vatican s Latinist The New Criterion a b Fox Margalit December 27 2020 Reginald Foster Vatican Latinist Who Tweeted in the Language Dies at 81 The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved December 27 2020 a b c Fraser Christian January 28 2007 Latinist laments dying language BBC Retrieved April 10 2009 a b Famous Latinist fired from Gregorian University announces new school Catholic News Agency October 18 2006 Retrieved April 10 2009 Thavis John September 18 2009 Recovering Milwaukee priest leaves hole in Latin office in the Vatican Catholic Herald Archdiocese of Milwaukee Retrieved March 5 2017 Vatican gives Latin online boost BBC News May 10 2008 a b Breitenbucher Cathy October 15 2009 Don t waste a moment being upset Catholic Herald Archdiocese of Milwaukee McCarthy Daniel February 10 2017 Latin Summer 2017 with Reginald Foster The Latin Language org Retrieved March 5 2017 A Natale la scomparsa del latinista padre Reginald Foster Vatican News in Italian December 26 2020 Retrieved December 26 2020 Torres Ricardo December 27 2020 Reginald Foster 81 maintained Milwaukee roots while serving four popes as Vatican s foremost Latin authority Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Retrieved December 27 2020 Levy Clifford J May 29 2004 Forget Hic Haec Hoc Try O Tempora O Lingua The New York Times Retrieved April 10 2009 Parsons Claudia July 21 2004 Passion for Latin thrives in Rome Reuters Archived from the original on August 4 2004 Roman Rebound So you thought that irksome language was dead The Economist December 18 2003 Foster Reginaldus Thomas McCarthy Daniel Patricius 2016 Ossa Latinitatis Sola Ad Mentem Reginaldi Rationemque The Mere Bones of Latin According to the Thought and System of Reginald Washington DC The Catholic University of America Press ISBN 9780813228327 a b Lyman Eric J April 22 2005 April 21 2005 Vatican s Latin expert no stuffy academic USA Today Lowe Mike November 22 2010 Vatican relies on Milwaukee man for his expertise in Latin Milwaukee WITI TV Fox 6 Archived from the original on July 11 2011 Levy Clifford J May 29 2004 The Saturday Profile Forget Hic Haec Hoc Try O Tempora O Lingua The New York Times Sheridan Michael May 9 1994 Last rites for a dying language The Independent Sources EditWalker Katie December 25 2020 The Pope s Latin teacher The Oldie Stille Alexander 2002 The Future of the Past How the Information Age Threatens to Destroy our Cultural Heritage New York Farrar Straus and Giroux ISBN 9780374159771 Foster Reginald December 27 2008 Latin would make Pope speak less Today audio 6 mins BBC News External links EditPersonal websitePreceded byAntonio Bacci Papal Latinist1969 2009 Succeeded byDaniel Gallagher Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Reginald Foster Latinist amp oldid 1140452395, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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