Father Reginald Foster, O.C.D, died recently from complications arising from Covid. Yes, I know – people across America are dying with bullet wounds and head trauma, falls, heart attacks, and what not else from Covid. But whatever it was that took his soul to God, his death marks the end of an era, for Father Foster was one of the foremost Latinists of the 20th century. I suppose for non-regular-readers of Catholic Insight, a ‘Latinist’ might signify expertise in Spanish-Hispanic-Mexican-Argentinian culture – like, say, Hilaria Baldwin – but no. Father Foster was a peritus in the linguam Latinam of the ancient Romans, and before them the Etruscans, which was in turn adopted by the Catholic Church in the late fourth century, and then by the Christian culture and civilization that the Church formed and founded.

Up until rather recently – say a generation or two – everyone had a smattering of Latin, enough to muddle through a bit of Caesar and Aquinas, perhaps even a bit less of Cicero and Augustine; and they could certainly have made it through the ‘Latin’ Mass. A myth to be sure that people did not understand the words at Mass. I have been castigated for singing the Sanctus, because people in the parish don’t know Latin’. I don’t think you need to know Latin to grasp the significance of the Sanctus, which would be comprehensible in Chinese.

The Fathers at the Second Vatican Council were scandalized that some bishops needed simultaneous translation for the discussions and speeches, conducted, of course, in Latin.

Go a bit further back, and those with a modicum of education were quite fluent in the ancient language, not just translating, but also composing. Cardinal Newman was fluent, as was Thomas Jefferson, who would pen Latin and Greek epigrams in his spare time. Isaac Newton wrote his Principia – with all the complex calculus – in Latin.

It was the lifelong mission of Father Reginald Foster to bring some of this back, to ‘instaurare’, to reinstate, the perennial Latin language, in which so much of our culture is written, and the greatest minds expressed their thoughts. After all, is not something always lost in translation? To Father Foster, ignorance of Latin is, well, ignorance.

Father Reggie was a controversial figure – zealous, hard-working (teaching ten courses a semester at times), diligent, solicitous of his students, ascetical – he was scandalized by the lifestyle of some of his fellow ecclesiastics when he was first in Rome – and a brilliant teacher and translator. But he could also be rather contrary, and did not suffer fools nor dilettantes gladly. I was always a bit puzzled when I read years ago of his decision to adopt a ‘modified’ habit of blue overalls – I heard them described as a ‘jumpsuit’ – rather than his proper Carmelite habit, as called for by the Council itself. What would Sanctus Johannes Crucis have to say?

Perhaps I quibble, as is my wont. Father Reginald was a legend, and legions of loyal students attest to his unique pedagogical method, emphasizing the military and precise nature of Latin, so given to clear, oral, as well as written, expression. There are no exceptions to the rules of Latin, unlike English, where the exception is the rule. He would have them read, cajole, shout, sing, in Latin, feeling the flow of the words. Eamus – Let’s go! Manducemus et bibamus! – Let us eat and drink!

And how much more devotional prayer is in the ancient and official language of the Church herself – of her saints, fathers, doctors, priests, bishops, missionaries and martyrs through the ages. (Of course, we would, and should, include Greek here, for the same panoply of greats in ‘other lung’ of the Church, in the East, but that is food for another reflection. I would recommend the recent Climbing Parnassus, an exhortation to immerse oneself on both languages of our culture).

Father Foster kept his pedagogical zeal right up to the very end, teaching ‘by remote’ a few days before his going to eternity in a nursing home in his native Milwaukee. May he hear the words of our Saviour:

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