Reginald Foster (Latinist)

Father Reginald Foster gives a lesson on the ablative absolute in Arpinum, Summer 2004

Reginald Foster (born November 14, 1939 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) is an American Catholic priest and friar of the order of Discalced Carmelites. He formerly worked in the "Latin Letters" section of the Secretariat of State in the Vatican. This section is the successor to the historical Briefs to Princes. Father Foster became one of the Pope's Latinists in the late 1960s. After spending many years in Rome, he returned to Milwaukee in 2009.

Foster is an expert in Latin literature, especially Cicero, and is an internationally recognized authority on the Latin language.

He appears in Bill Maher's 2008 documentary Religulous.

Biography

Foster has stated that since the age of 13 he has desired three things: 1) to be a monk, 2) to be a priest, and 3) to work with Latin. Foster grew up in a family of plumbers (his father, brothers, and uncles are plumbers). He went to junior seminary in Peterborough, New Hampshire, where he fell in love with Latin. He would sit in the library with Lewis and Short's Latin Dictionary, fascinated by the entries.

Foster went to Rome in the early 1960s to study. He also taught German. He is fluent in Latin, German, Italian, and his native English.

Foster continues to suffer serious health complications resulting from a fall in June 2008, and was admitted on January 17, 2009, into the Fate Bene Fratelli Hospital on the Tiber Island. After a grueling several months spent mostly in intensive care, during which Foster narrowly avoided death, he finally recovered enough to be taken to the United States, where he is to recuperate and receive physical therapy at Clement Manor. Due to his injuries, Foster canceled his Summer Latin program for 2009, but now intends to resume classes in the USA in 2010 (see below). In 2010 he joined the Board of Visitors of Ralston College, a start-up liberal arts college in Savannah, Georgia the president of which, Stephen Blackwood, is a former Aestiva Romae Latinitas student.

Latin Class

Since the early 1970s Foster had taught during the regular academic year in the Gregorian University in Rome. These classes consist of five "experiences," broken down such that the first, third, and fourth experiences cover basic grammar and practice readings. The second experience is a conversational practice class, and is open to students of all levels. The fifth class is the most advanced class, and is taught at a higher level (much of it in Latin) than just about any other Latin class in the world. These classes at the Gregorian are populated almost exclusively by Catholic clergy, seminarians, nuns, etc., and by a very small number of laymen. The fifth experience, however, tends to attract mostly laymen. In 2004, he was fired for the large numbers of non-paying students.

Foster's summer course "Aestiva Romae Latinitas", or Summer Latin in Rome, has been held every summer since 1985 at the Janiculum Hill in Rome. He does not charge anything, only requiring the student to possess basic knowledge of Latin, love of the language, and the will to learn more, making the course very popular.

He likes the students to have the Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary (which he strongly prefers to the more modern, but less complete Oxford Latin Dictionary) and the Gildersleeve and Lodge Latin Grammar in class at all times. Class is taught not from a textbook but from his "sheets," which are oversized mimeographs of Latin literature ranging from the earliest texts, ca. 200 B.C., to the latest Papal documents.

Homework is what Foster terms "Ludi Domestici", homeplay rather than homework. These are again oversized mimeographs in Foster's typewritten characters—large and small capitals. Students are to complete these Ludi on their own using their dictionaries and notes from class.

Foster's summer courses consist of two "tracks"—the "iuniores" and the "seniores." Each day (six days a week, Sundays off), his classes meet, beginning around 2:00 p.m., in the basement theater of an elementary school run by nuns not far from where Foster lives on the Janiculum Hill. A typical class day consists of three 90-minute sections separated by short breaks: one session for the iuniores; a joint session for both levels; then a seniores section.

After class Foster also holds informal meetings "sub arboribus" (under the trees) in the early evening at his monastery, called the Teresianum, next to the very ancient San Pancrazio church, for more practice in Latin. Two nights a week are dedicated to conversational Latin, two to reading Latin texts by sight.

On Sundays during the summer, Foster leads excursions into such places as Pompeii, the Roman Forum, and the Castelli Romani. For these gatherings, Foster provides booklets full of Latin texts, maps, and pictures pertaining to that day's trip. Everyone takes public transportation, and these outings are almost invariably followed by dinner at a small Italian restaurant near each locale. Other outings are half-day affairs within Rome. Tours of the Roman Forum and Capitoline as well as an Ides of March tour are popular. Upon request, Foster will also lead "Inscription Reading" tours around Rome before his regularly scheduled tours.

Entry to the summer course is provisional upon completion of a written test, which Foster provides upon request, either via mail or fax. These classes are generally populated by Latin teachers, professors, graduate students, and undergradate students from around the world, as well as a small number of priests, seminarians, and nuns. The course is supported by donors around the world. Foster accepts donations only if they are "voluntary and anonymous."^{[citation needed]}

In 2009, for the first summer in many years, however, Foster's summer school will not be held; he intends to offer his regular academic-year classes beginning in Fall 2009, and to resume the summer school in 2010.

On January 12, 2010 Foster circulated a flier over email indicating that he intends to hold his Latin classes in Milwaukee (where he now resides), both during the regular year and during the summer. The flier reads:

UNIVERSUM LATINITATIS CURRICULUM

A. Annua Exercitatio Communis

• Milvauchiae mense Octobri ad Maium • in triginta quinque congressibus gratuitis • quinque “Experientiarum” sive graduum ab imo ad summum • feriis opportunis interpositis • pluribus cum lectionibus ‘ad libitum’.

B. Aestiva Eruditio Altior

• ibidem mensibus Iunio et Iulio • sixties in hebdomada gratis • duorum ordinum superioris institutionis: Iuniorum et Seniorum • itineribus litterariis propositis • liberis cum sessionibus ‘sub arboribus’.

Latin Liturgy

Despite Foster's condemnation over what he sees as a decline in Latin teaching, he is a critic of a return to Latin liturgy, commenting that it "makes the Vatican look a bit medieval". He believes that a better example would be for Benedict XVI to announce that he will read Latin in his Vatican quarters.

Media Reception

Foster's teaching style has made him the subject of BBC documentaries and a chapter in Alexander Stille's book The Future of the Past. It is characterized by a gruff style that feigns anger, disappointment, and a sense of despair for the future of Latin studies. Yet most students see that the demeanor is merely part of his style, and consider his "tough love" approach a refreshing contrast to the coddling of undergraduate American curricula. His pedagogy often can be a bit contrarian: In terms of his teaching, the task of translating any bawdy Latin text might, for example, go to a pious sister, and a text from St. Augustine or Pope St. Leo the Great to an atheist or a Jew.

On October 17, 2006, according to the Catholic News Agency, Foster announced to a group of about 100 students that he had been fired from his teaching position at the Gregorian University by the Society of Jesus, on grounds that too many students were taking his classes without paying tuition. As a result, on November 2, 2006, according to CNA, Foster founded the new "Academia Romae Latinitatis", a free Latin Academy for all interested English speakers interested in learning or brushing up on their Latin. The Academia, also known as the Istituto Ganganelli, is currently being housed near Piazza Venezia in Rome.

Foster was featured, in an interview segment conducted in front of the Vatican, in the 2008 film Religulous. In his interview with Bill Maher, Father Foster candidly admits that he does not believe Hell exists, that December 25 was not the birth date of Jesus and that the opulence of the Vatican betrays the original message of Jesus. He describes such beliefs as "nice stories" and part of the "old Catholic thing."

Further reading

• A. Stille: "The Future of the Past: How the Information Age Threatens to Destroy our Cultural Heritage" ISBN 0-330-37534-2

External Links

• Learn Latin with Father Reginaldus Foster
• Sermones Leonis Magni (The sermons of Pope Leo I, read by Reginald Foster)
• More about Aestiva Latinitatis (summer class)

Newspaper Articles

• Roman Rebound from The Economist
• Forget 'Hic, Haec, Hoc.' Try 'O Tempora! O Lingua!' Abstract from the New York Times
• Claudia Parsons Passion for Latin Thrives in Rome from Reuters
• Eric J. Lyman Vatican's Latin expert no stuffy academic from USA Today
• Famous Latinist fired from Gregorian University, announces new school

Preceded by Antonio Bacci

Papal Latinist 1969-present

Succeeded by Incumbent