Reginald Foster (Latinist)
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Father Reginald "Reggie" Foster |
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| Born |
Reginald Thomas Foster 14 October 1939 Milwaukee, Wisconsin |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Priest, latinist |
Reginald "Reggie" Foster O.C.D. (born November 14, 1939 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) is an American Catholic priest and friar of the Order of Discalced Carmelites. From 1970 until his retirement in 2009, he worked in the Latin Letters section of the Secretariat of State in the Vatican, formerly known as Briefs to Princes. He is an expert in Latin literature and an influential teacher of Latin, including 30 years at the Gregorian University in Rome and free summer courses that he has continued after returning to Milwaukee.
Foster grew up in a family of plumbers (his father, brothers, and uncles were plumbers), and entered seminary at 13; he has said that he wanted three things: "to be a priest, to be a Carmelite, and to do Latin".
In 1962, Foster went to Rome to study. In 1970, at the recommendation of Carlo Egger and despite the objections of the Procurator General of his Order, he succeeded Cardinal 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. He worked there for forty years, returning to Milwaukee in 2009 upon his retirement.
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. 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.
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