Father Reginald Foster - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Reginald Foster is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

Catholic priest and friar

Friar

A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders.-Friars and monks:...

of the order of Discalced

Discalced

Discalced is a term applied to those religious congregations of men and women, the members of which go entirely barefoot or wear sandals, with or without other covering for the feet. These congregations are often distinguished on this account from other branches of the same order...

Carmelites

The Order of the Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel or Carmelites is a Catholic religious order perhaps founded in the 12th century on Mount Carmel, hence its name. However, historical records about its origin remain uncertain...

. He formerly worked in the "Latin Letters

Latin Letters Office

The Latin Letters Office is a department of the Roman Curia's secretariat of State in Vatican City. It is well-known among modern-day Latinists as the place where the Catholic Church's documents are written in or translated into Latin....

" section of the Secretariat of State in the Vatican

Vatican City

Vatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...

. This section is the successor to the historical Briefs to Princes. Father Foster became one of the Pope

Pope

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...

'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

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...

, and is an internationally recognized authority on the Latin language

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

.

He appears in Bill Maher

Bill Maher

William "Bill" Maher, Jr. is an American stand-up comedian, television host, political commentator, author and actor. Before his current role as the host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher hosted a similar late-night talk show called Politically Incorrect originally on Comedy Central and...

's 2008 documentary Religulous
Religulous
Religulous is a 2008 American comic documentary film written by and starring comedian Bill Maher and directed by Larry Charles. The title of the film is a portmanteau derived from the words "religion" and "ridiculous"; the documentary examines and mocks organized religion and religious...

.

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 plumber

Plumber

A plumber is a tradesperson who specializes in installing and maintaining systems used for potable water, sewage, and drainage in plumbing systems. The term dates from ancient times, and is related to the Latin word for lead, "plumbum." A person engaged in fixing metaphorical "leaks" may also be...

s (his father, brothers, and uncles are plumbers). He went to junior seminary in Peterborough, New Hampshire

Peterborough, New Hampshire

Peterborough is a town in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 6,284 at the 2010 census. Home to the MacDowell Art Colony, the town is a popular tourist destination....

, 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

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

in the early 1960s to study. He also taught German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

. He is fluent in Latin, German, Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

, 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

Tiber Island

The Tiber Island , is a boat-shaped island which has long been associated with healing. It is an ait, and is one of the two islands in the Tiber river, which runs through Rome; the other one, much larger, is near the mouth. The island is located in the southern bend of the Tiber. It is...

. 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

Visitor

A Visitor, in United Kingdom law and history, is an overseer of an autonomous ecclesiastical or eleemosynary institution , who can intervene in the internal affairs of that institution...

of Ralston College

Ralston College

Ralston College is a liberal arts college in Savannah, Georgia, United States. It was founded on February 1, 2010 and as of December 2010 is not yet accepting applications for admission. The patrons of Ralston College are Harold Bloom, Hilary Putnam, and Salman Rushdie. The members of the Board...

, a start-up liberal arts college

Liberal arts college

A liberal arts college is one with a primary emphasis on undergraduate study in the liberal arts and sciences.Students in the liberal arts generally major in a particular discipline while receiving exposure to a wide range of academic subjects, including sciences as well as the traditional...

in Savannah

Savannah, Georgia

Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...

, Georgia

Georgia (U.S. state)

Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

the president of which, Stephen Blackwood

Stephen J. Blackwood

Stephen James Blackwood is a scholar, academic administrator, and social entrepreneur born in 1975. He is the founding president of Ralston College, a start-up institution of higher education in Savannah. He also sits on the board of the Caring for Carcinoid Foundation...

, 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

Grammar

In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...

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

Janiculum

The Janiculum is a hill in western Rome, Italy. Although the second-tallest hill in the contemporary city of Rome, the Janiculum does not figure among the proverbial Seven Hills of Rome, being west of the Tiber and outside the boundaries of the ancient city.-Sights:The Janiculum is one of the...

Hill in Rome

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

A Latin Dictionary

A Latin Dictionary is a popular English-language lexicographical work of the Latin language, completed in 1879, published by Oxford University Press, and still widely used by classical scholars and Latinists.-History:...

(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

San Pancrazio

San Pancrazio is a basilica church in Rome, founded in the 6th century. It stands in via S. Pancrazio, westward beyond the Porta San Pancrazio that opens in a stretch of the Aurelian Wall on the Janiculum....

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

Pompeii

The city of Pompeii is a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning...

, the Roman Forum

Roman Forum

The Roman Forum is a rectangular forum surrounded by the ruins of several important ancient government buildings at the center of the city of Rome. Citizens of the ancient city referred to this space, originally a marketplace, as the Forum Magnum, or simply the 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

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."

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 • liveris 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

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

documentaries and a chapter in Alexander Stille

Alexander Stille

Alexander Stille is an American author and journalist. He is the son of Ugo Stille, a well-known Italian journalist and a former editor of Italy's Milan-based Corriere della Sera newspaper. Alexander Stille graduated from Yale and later the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism...

'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

Pedagogy

Pedagogy is the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction....

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

St. Augustine

-People:* Augustine of Hippo or Augustine of Hippo , father of the Latin church* Augustine of Canterbury , first Archbishop of Canterbury* Augustine Webster, an English Catholic martyr.-Places:*St. Augustine, Florida, United States...

or Pope St. Leo the Great to an atheist or a Jew.

On October 17, 2006, according to the Catholic News Agency

Catholic News Agency

The Catholic News Agency is a provider of news related to Catholicism to an English speaking audience worldwide. It is headquartered in Denver, Colorado....

, 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

Society of Jesus

The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...

, 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

Piazza Venezia

The Piazza Venezia is a piazza in central Rome, Italy. It takes its name from Cardinal Venezia who built the adjacent Palazzo Venezia, the former embassy of the city of the Republic of Venice....

in Rome.

Foster was featured, in an interview segment conducted in front of the Vatican, in the 2008 film Religulous
Religulous
Religulous is a 2008 American comic documentary film written by and starring comedian Bill Maher and directed by Larry Charles. The title of the film is a portmanteau derived from the words "religion" and "ridiculous"; the documentary examines and mocks organized religion and religious...

. 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."

External Links

Learn Latin with Father Reginaldus Foster
Sermones Leonis Magni (The sermons of Pope Leo I
Pope Leo I
Pope Leo I was pope from September 29, 440 to his death.He was an Italian aristocrat, and is the first pope of the Catholic Church to have been called "the Great". He is perhaps best known for having met Attila the Hun in 452, persuading him to turn back from his invasion of Italy...

, 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