Renowned Vatican Latinist Fr Reginald Foster has died

image: Vatican News

Source: Vatican News/ICN

The expert Vatican Latinist, Father Reginald Foster, a friar of the Discalced Carmelite Order, died on Christmas Day at the age of 81. Originally from Milwaukee in Wisconsin, Fr Reginald spent almost 40 years as one of the Vatican's foremost experts in the Latin language.

Working in the Latin Letters section of the Secretariat of State from 1970 until his retirement in 2009, he served four popes: Paul VI, John Paul I and II, and Benedict XVI - composing original documents in Latin, the Vatican's official language, and translating their speeches and other writings into Latin from a series of papal languages. He was also fluent in Italian, German and Greek.

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.

Fr Reginald received global acclaim for his unique pedagogical method and his presentation of Latin as a living language. 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 2004 for allowing too many students to take his classes there without paying. 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.

In 2010, the University of Notre Dame awarded Fr Reginald an honorary Doctorate for his contribution to Latin studies.

Foster grew up in a family of plumbers - his father, brothers, and uncles were plumbers. He said that he wanted three things from an early age: "to be a priest, to be a Carmelite, and to do Latin." At the age of 15 he went to junior seminary in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and joined the Carmelites in 1959.

In 1962, he went to Rome to study. In 1970 he succeeded Mgr 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.

Fr Reginald was known for his ascetic lifestyle - 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 wore plain working clothes, sneakers and a blue polyester windbreaker in cold weather. The Swiss Guards called him ''il benzinaio (the gas-station attendant). There were some complaints about his appearance.

In 2008 Fr became ill and was hospitalized for a time. He was flown back to the United States, where he received further treatment in a nursing home in Greenfield, Wisconsin. As his health improved he resumed giving free Latin classes at the University of Milwaukee as of March 2017 he was teaching in his home.

Fr John McGowan ocd, from Kensington Priory said: "Fr Reginald was a legend in the Vatican… He was known not only for his position in the Vatican but also for coming to work in what people called a boiler suit. He was the antithesis of what we associate with the Vatican, in the way he dressed and his austere lifestyle. He will be known and missed by countless priests, bishops and cardinals.. May he rest in peace."

Pope Francis sent a telegram on Monday to Fr Saverio Cannistrà, the Father General of the Order of Discalced Carmelite Friars, to express his condolences. The note was signed by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin.

The Pope expressed his appreciation for Fr Reginald's many years of service to the Holy See. He said Fr Reginald "demonstrated the brilliance of Latin to copious numbers of students." And the Holy Father prayed that the Latinist of the Popes might receive from God "recompense in full measure."

One of his former students, Katie Walker, pays tribute to Fr Reginald in her blog for the Oldie today. See: www.theoldie.co.uk/blog/the-popes-latin-teacher