The Pope's Latin Teacher

Father Reginald Foster advised four Popes on Latin for 40 years. As he turns 80, he’s now teaching Katie Walker in his native Milwaukee

Reginald Foster was the Pope’s Latinist for 40 years –and for four Popes – from 1969 to 2009. The discalced (from a barefoot or sandal-wearing order) Carmelite priest and friar turns 80 on 14th November.

To become the Pope’s Latinist was some appointment for the plumber’s son from the American Midwest. Father Reginald, known as Reggie, was always a bright one. Whenever he did well at school, his mother used to shout, ‘I knew it! I brought the wrong baby home from the hospital!’

Reggie worked next to the Pope’s apartments in the Latin Letters section of the Secretariat of State in the Vatican, previously called Briefs to Princes. He was Latinist to Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI – who resigned in Latin in 2013.

His duties included translating encyclicals, sentences of excommunication and signposts for Vatican City into Latin. A Latin scholar without peer, Reggie would use, where possible, a Ciceronian turn of phrase or couch his translations in elegant hyperbaton – that is, reversing the English word order.

Where necessary, he’d choose Latin words for modern phenomena. Rock ’n’ roll became tumultuatio. Twitter was breviloquentia. He invented new expressions, too. Hamburger with onions is bubula hamburgensis cepulis condita.

To Reggie’s initial amazement, he wasn’t just translator but also ghostwriter for the Pontiff. On his very first day at work for Pope Paul VI in 1969, he was asked to pen a note of congratulation to Idi Amin (for what, exactly, has been lost in the sands of time). When no text for translation was forthcoming from the Pope, Reggie asked where he could find it. His boss told him to write the note from scratch. ‘But what shall I say?’ he asked.

‘Just imagine you’re the Pope,’ came the classic reply.