In Reginaldi Honorem, Liber Amicorum

8/18/2019 In Reginaldi Honorem, Liber Amicorum

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In Honor of

Fr. Reginald Foster O.C.D. on His 75th Birthday

Liber

Amicorum

Second Revised Edition



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Special Thanks

Prof. Elizabeth Fisher and the George Washington University.

Michael Witmore and the Te Folger Shakespeare Library.

Paul Perrot or help with transportation.

Tomas Cohen, Ruth Bell, and Elizabeth Butterworth or help

with planning.

Amy Garland and Christopher Cochran, 2014 - 2015 Paideia

Rome Fellows, or help planning site visits.

Claire Burgess or help with the Liber Amicorum and

registration.

Michael Fontaine and Charlie McNamara or help planning

the Festschrif.

Andrei Gotia or the revisions or the Second Edition.



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Reginalde,

Simply put, you changed my lie in many proound ways that arestill unolding twenty years afer my time in Rome during the

spring and summer o both 1993 and 1994 during my husband’ssabbatical. Much o the deeply human experiences I read aboutwith you at the Gregoriana, on literary tours and in your summerschool -- expressed in Cicero’s letters, Plautus’s comedies, St.Augustine’s conessions and so many more authors – continue toinorm my thinking in both my personal and proessional lie. No,I didn’t end up as a Latin teacher, but as a clinical social worker in

a role that involves some teaching. I still read Latin, however, andregularly quote relevant passages to anyone who will listen. I alsoam a member o a community o musicians and singers who meetregularly to make music inormally inter pocula -- an experiencethat links quite directly to my pleasure in singing Latin with youand your flock in Rome.

Hands down, you are the best teacher o any subject I have everhad. You saw me accurately – both strengths and weaknesses – andacilitated my growth as a Latin scholar and a human being whilesimultaneously doing the same or others at very different levels.You are a definitely a role model or my own teaching – especiallyor the mixing o the serious with the not-so-serious, or showingmy own vulnerability and or helping people overcome obstacles by

holding their eet to the fire, i they can take it.

Most o all, you provided a glorious and inspiring example o howteaching, learning, love o a subject and a joyul community olearners can become part o what makes lie worth living. ShirleyHerbert and I are still riends and so, though I have not kept intouch with you directly or a long time, I eel connected to you

through her. My husband, Greg, and I both send our gratitude toyou or our time with you in Rome and our best wishes or healthand happiness in all you do.

Imo ex corde gratias tibi ago.

Patricia Kuhlman



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I think we’re all glad to be at the end o these speeches, so I’ll be

brie. I thought I’d share with you an ending o my own, not one othe level we ace in June, but one on a smaller scale.

I spent three and a hal weeks o my summer in a classroom at thetop o a hill. I had decided to go to Rome to study Latin with thePapal Latin Secretary, Father Reginald Foster. I arrived in Rome onJuly 4, America’s independence day, and I elt independent. I would

get mysel through a strange city to a strange classroom taught bya strange man and ull o strange classmates without any problems,and I would enjoy the experience. Tree hours into my “experi-ence,” as I wandered the streets o the lower Janiculum Hill, lookingor St. Stephen’s School, I decided that the colonists had had thewrong idea. Independence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. In the 100degree heat, I climbed and climbed, despairing that I would ever

find the place. And even i I did, would I want to be there? Finally,I saw a middle-aged man with a black straw hat and briecaseslowly making his way up the same hill ahead o me. My last hope,I thought. Tis man looks like a Latin student. (I now think that iI had seen Rome’s equivalent o Elvis Presley riding a motorcycleup that hill, I would have thought he looked like a Latin student.) Iollowed him, and ollowed him, up and up the hill, until he finally

turned a corner into a wrought-iron gate. St. Stephen’s School. Teman was a Latin student, Bill, to all his classmates, though in hisother lie, he was an Australian Supreme Court Justice.

I had ound my classroom or the next three and hal weeks. But Iwas exhausted by jet lag and about to aint in the sweltering heat.As I took my place at a small desk, surrounded by thirty-nine other

Latin students: American Latin teachers, oreign scholars, collegestudents, my one hope was that Father Foster, who had only justmet me and surely understood the effects o jet lag, would not callon me today.

A Classroom on a Hill



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“Susannah, responde Latine : quomodo venisti hodie?” I thinkthat at that moment my voice and brain lef my body and startedto work independent o my command, because I said, “Ego volaviRomam, et ambulavi et cucurri ad scholam.”

My classmates laughed in comprehension, and Father Foster smiledencouragingly. “Bene! Bene! u es deessa. Dormi nunc! “

I had arrived, despite some difficulty, and I had answered a ques-tion in what I would soon recognize to be the hardest class I haveever taken. Break out the firecrackers.

Te rest o my experience with Father Foster’s class was one parteach o exhaustion and heat stroke and eight parts enthusiasm, joy,education, suspense, pride, honor, riendship, and finally, love. As aclass we visited all the sites o ancient Rome and also had a chanceto see some o the private rooms painted by Raphael in the Vatican.Te Old estament and New estament stories told on the walls

were breathtaking. Each day I climbed the Janiculum Hill in thesun only to arrive in a classroom where the real heat and electricitywere generated by the students and the teacher. On my and Bill’slast day in class, Bill stood to say good-bye.

“Ave atque vale. Sed non, spero, in perpetuum.” I started to cry. Ihad been part o a classroom, and a class, on a hill. I had lived adead language and made riends I would never orget. My walkdown the hill that day was harder than all the walks up it combined.Tat hill, though, a riend reminded me later, has been there sinceRome’s earliest days. It will be waiting or me when I go back.

Susannah Barton Tobin

Reginaldum senem iam senescens salutat Pincerna quem discipu-lum litteris instruxisti magistrum vel absens monuisti hominemquid sit humaniter vivere docuisti.

Shane Butler



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“As I think upon and with my spirit draw up the memory o goodOctavius, most loyal comrade, such warmth and affection touchesme that I seem not merely to recall events that have transpired, butsomehow to re-enter the past itsel. Tus, contemplation o him,as much it is withheld rom my eyes, so much is it knitted into mybreast and my deepest senses.”

Cogitanti mihi et cum animo meo Octavi boni et fidelissimi contu-bernalis memoriam recensenti, tanta dulcedo et adfectio hominisinhaesit ut ipse quodam modo mihi viderer in praeterita redire, nonea quae iam transacta et decursa sunt recordatione revocare: ita eiuscontemplatio quantum subtracta oculis, tantum pectori meo ac paeneintimis sensibus implicata est.

So begins Municius Felix’s ond recollection o his ellow soldierOctavius. I was assigned to memorize and recite these beautiullines in the summer Latin course o 1992. Te diploma I receivednow hangs proudly in my office between my bachelor’s and doc-torate’s degrees. Aestiva Romae Latinitas was the most wonderuleducational experience o my lie.

I have many ond recollections I would like to share with you andthrough whose descriptions I would try to lead you vividly back tothose blissul days. But so do you all. I will thereore be brie. I havechosen two.

Memoria prima. I grew up in a culturally Jewish home. But I am nolonger even culturally Jewish. I was certainly not seeking spiritual

illumination rom the Roman Catholic Church in the summer o1992. I did, however, attend a Mass that Reginald conducted, at therequest o many o the program’s participants, in the basement othe monastery at San Pancrazio. O course, the Mass was in Latin,and I recall his homily on the good Samaritan. Communion wassubsequently distributed, and, well, I too opened my mouth and

Recollections from Rome,Summer 1992



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took the offering. Later I learned that some o the participants,among them a ew priests and nuns, were offended that I did.

When I arrived in Rome, I was already crazy about Latin. So you

can imagine the effect the program and Reginald in particularhad on me. o have been initiated into the living language with itstwo thousand year history pulsating all around me, my conditionquickly deteriorated rom crazy to hopeless. But I am not deendingmy take o communion on the grounds o insanity. Rather, by thattime, several weeks into the course, I elt so much affection or mycollaboratores and or the instructor that my act was an expression

o community.

Memoria secunda. I orget the occasion— it might have beenReginald’s birthday or perhaps it was some anniversary relating tohis appointment as Latin Secretary. In any case, we students hadplanned a celebration and our mood was o course celebratory. ButReginald began the day asking us to postpone the celebration or

another time. He explained that during the night he had receiveda phone call inorming him o the passing o his mother. Te newswas shocking to all o us, as much as the act that he had chosento share it and that he had nonetheless come to teach. Perhaps histeaching and the community o his students brought him somemeasure o comort. Te poignancy o the event was urther under-scored a ew days later when our Sunday excursion took us to OstiaAntica and where standing in the ruins o that ancient harbor townwe read Augustine’s eulogistic remarks on his own mother Monica.

Philosophers have a bad habit o being too serious. But they usu-ally have a point in reflecting on lie’s grand themes. Reginald isone o those human beings who can rightly be described as orce

o nature. We are here to celebrate his 75th birthday, but I wouldn’tbe surprised i we returned in 25 years to celebrate his centenary.Given his own vocal criticisms o the Church, I don’t know howar his religious skepticism extends. In any case, I believe the valuein our lives wholly resides here on earth. Yet although it does, itmay o course extend well beyond our individual lives, insoar as it



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David Wolfsdorf

affects the lives o others. I am one among you whose lie has beenaffected by the great ortune I had o being a student o Reginald’s.Father Foster is a great Latinist. But it is clear that there is more tohis pedagogy than mastery o the language. His teaching is imbued

and animated by a deep humanity. Tis is the lesson I learned rommy experience in his classroom: master your subject, and inuse itsteaching with love. Tank you or that gif.

ibi optimo humanissimoque magistrorum, cuius eruditio etbenevolentia me docentem et viventem usque nutriebant, vigintiannis lapsis, plurimas gratias semper agam. Quotienscumque de tecogito, totiens toto pectore nimirum rideo.

Diana Beste

Reginalde -

Felix dies natalis sit tibi!Hoc in die magno gratias tibi ago…liberalitatembenignitatemhumanitatemat etiam multas tuas acetias propter, apud te…

in conveniendo, jocunditatemin discendo, bonumin comitando, gaudium habui et habeo…Ergo - ubicumque, quandocumque possim, non solum linguae Latinae sed etiam amicitiae causa, in conventicula tua veniam!!!

Semper te in corde, semper in memoria tenens…

Johanna Haines



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I first met Reginald Foster in the autumn o 1987, soon afer I hadarrived in Rome to spend a year researching my dissertation on

humanist narratives o the Sack o Rome in 1527. A ormer studento his had told me about his classes, and so I went to the Gregori-ana or the first meeting o the “Tird Experience.” I explained thatI was beginning research at the Vatican Library, but that my Latintraining was woeully inadequate or the task beore me. He nod-ded and smiled indulgently as one who had heard it all beore, andwelcomed me into the class. Since I had just spent the morningworking at the BAV, I was wearing the then-obligatory jacket andtie. When Reginald first called on me in class, he added at the end,“and you, Mr. Vatican Library — take that tie off! It looks awul.”When the class laughed, he quickly added: “I just mean, don’t wearit or me.” Tis is, in nuce, my own experience o Reginald: excep-tionally generous, equally demanding o precision, astonishingly

anti-authoritarian or someone so eminent, and yet at the sametime prooundly sensitive to others’ eelings. My debts to him, bothpersonal and proessional, are as proound as they have been last-ing. Gratias plurimas tibi ago, magister optime!

Kenneth Gouwens

Te first time I met Reggie he did his best to convince me that Ishouldn’t attend his summer experience. Being in Rome, I hiked upto the eresainum, a part o Rome new to me in November 2000,but one that became quite amiliar over the next couple o years.

Afer a ew minutes in the reception room, Reggie had had enougho me: I had no chance to pass the entrance ludus or the summerexperience. A new strategy was needed. I reasoned that i I didn’ttake the test, he couldn’t bar me. Tat was the path I chose. A ewmonths later I was back in Rome. Te next time I saw Reggie hewas waiting or me at the end o the long drive that ended at the ba-

silica o San Pancrazio. He noticed the Lewis and Short and decidedto take a chance on me. “Well, since you’re here…”

Chris Petitt



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Help me, O Muse, now to sing,

Summer Latin, the gifs it brings,Order placed on mental hodge-podge,Tanks to riends, Gildersleeve and Lodge,Lewis and Short, where each word tells,“You won’t find that in your Cassell’s!”

On hot summer days while Italia dreamed,

Juniores et Seniores convened,o make bold attack and mild oray,At the Isituto Divino Amore,Where we read authors old and patristic,Purged the subjunctive o characteristic(Which makes its victims all red and pursey,Just ask the kids rom that school in New Jersey.)

We tackled grammar’s arcane laws,Trilled to the genitive o exciting cause,raversed the linguistic lowlands and highlands,Loved the locative or towns and small islands,Te oggy uture, conditions ideal,As well as those logical, and unreal,Numbers cardinal, ordinal, and even in raction,Te seductive charms o modal attraction,Locutions venerable, sly, dissolute,Well-behaved ablatives, and those absolute,racks One and wo, the system never ails,For those who paint it on their fingernails,

Suus and eius, subject and story,Te ancient world, its grie and its glory.

Sabbath meets rest, but it also means play,ime or more Latin, and or holiday,Ostia Antica, and Castello Gandolo,

Ode for Reginaldus

Aestiva Romae Latinitas: 31 July 1999



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A walk in the Forum, a dip in Albino,Arpinum, Formic, and other such mystica,Urinari, apricari, and Loca Tomistica,Le the thing grow, don’t push, don’t pull,

You too can serenade a papal bull,Read Latin night and day, the rest is ree,But don’t orget your Ludi domistici.A course that made us so much the more glad,Tan any the which had we not had had.Quam scholam quacumque si non habuissemus…Oh, that’s child’s play, or an ignoramus!

Just ask that cab driver out in the street,Or the odd dolphin you happen to meet.Line here?Plautine comedy and Senecan rant,Te haunting sound o Gregorian chant,Ovid, ibullus, Augustine preaching,Caesar, Waller, Pontifical teaching,

More Erasmus, who’d want to go home?Cicero himsel is speaking on the phone!Aquinas, Caelius, Columella,Petronius, Livy, Lorenzo Valla,We heard each voice we elt each breath,We prayed with Saint Tomas, even in death.

Beware word order, i you want to thrive,Four groups, six times, the amous sixty-five,Impersonals, deponents, make your list,Te perect tense, by the way, doesn’t exist,It’s Four A and B, we never ignore ‘em,Ninerum, we adore consectutio temporum.Gerunds, genmdives, the sneaky supine,Got the idea? Let’s watch our time.We read church history, studied the schism,Practiced some papal ventriloquism,Broke rules and habits, read better and betterLearned that all Latin comes down to one letter,



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A truth above all was never in doubt,I you don’t know Latin, you’re out, out, out!

In Latin and lie, a curious act:

Afer you start, you can never go back.ime flies by and ast, and ades like the flower,Eight weeks pass, asi only one hour.But beore we go our separate ways,We want to deck Reginaldus with praise.So many superlatives does he inspire,Tat even an epic muse would tire,

He shared his passion, he shared his learning,He ignited minds, and kept them burning,Proved teaching to be a ministry o love,Poured out like grace rom heaven above,And so mere rhymes can scarcely express,Our gratitude or his great kindness.

Perhaps the one thing Latin cannot say,Is how deep in our hearts you are this day.

Robert S. Miola

Certain kinds o letters strike ear into human hearts. Dear John

letters and IRS letters certainly come to mind. For students in theMedieval Institute at Notre Dame the inamous “Latin letter” couldbe added to that category. Last spring, I received one.

“I am sorry to inorm you that you have ailed your Latin exami-nation. I you are to have any chance o passing the exam in theuture, I suggest that you seriously redouble your efforts.” Tat was

the chilling central message o the letter. Chilling because i you areanything like I was, the study o Latin draws one toward nostalgiceelings or the dentist’s chair or a place at traffic court. My studiedopinion afer three years o Latin study (two as an undergraduate,and one as a graduate student) was that nothing, short o Chinesewater torture or reading the National Catholic Reporter, could



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compare to the difficulty, tedium, and outright pain o having totranslate 40 or 50 lines o, say, Augustine’s De Civitate Dei, by 8:00a.m. the ollowing morning.

Now, however, I am a new man. I do not mean at all to imply thatnow Cicero’s De Oratore is to me as V Guide is to most. No, al-though my Latinity has improved, I realize now as ever that I’ve gotmiles to go. Te change has come rather rom the transormation oLatin rom a dead language to a lingua vivens mihi.

Te “Latin Summer Experience,” as it is called, began with 20-some

eager scholars meeting in ront o the Pontifical Institute o Spiri-tuality in Rome. Tese students came not only rom prestigiousschools in the United States such as Princeton, UCLA, and NorthCarolina, but also rom England and Germany. Many o thoseparticipating in the course were high school or college Latin teach-ers themselves, while others were graduate students preparing to doresearch requiring the use o Latin. Tere we met Reginald Foster, a

Carmelite priest, who would be our guide or the next eight weeks.

Class began that day, as always, with a quiz rom “Reginaldus.” (Inact, he never gives actual quizzes or tests. Rather, at any momentin class, a student’s knowledge is challenged by question or outrightdemand.)

“How do you say ‘you can buy alse teeth rom us within the hour’in Latin? Quanto citius, eo melius!”

“Well, let’s see … potestis … emere a nobis intra unam horam….”

Te pauses in Reginald’s class are never long or he rescues studentsrom their dismay beore too much embarrassment.

“Factos dentes!” he belts out, with a smile. Reginald’s voice hasabout three volumes represented by the 8, 9, and 10 indicators onthe knob o a stereo.



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With that, we began the eight weeks. His own description o thecourse reads, “Not any sort o crash-course but rather a completeand immediate, practical and concrete experience o the entireLatin language and all Latin literature o 2200 years through natu-

ral, total, no-pressure immersion into precision Latin understand-ing and composing, first-sight reading and speaking, plus on-the-spot historical reliving rom genuine Latin literary sources.” And soit was, or three to six hours a day and six days a week.

A constant throughout this entire time was an indigo blue, quasi-plumber’s suit Foster wears unceasingly. He takes joy in the myth

surrounding it. “It’s rom J.C. Penney’s,” he crowed. “I’ve beenordering the exact same suit or over 20 years!” Tat he ever wouldhave chosen the polyester outfit to begin with was remarkable. TatJ.C. Penney’s still offered said suit was astounding. But that in the20 years o his ordering the mythical garment, he had neglected toorder a larger size to accommodate his expanding figure, was abso-lutely out o the realm o the real. (Actually, Foster is remarkably fit,

probably due to his rapid pace o walking, ofen the most efficientmeans o travel in Rome.) In any case, his suit made him easy tospot in the crowded plaza o the Vatican.

We had plenty to keep us busy even aside rom the delights oRome. Te plethora o texts used in class not only expanded myhorizons in terms o the rich diversity o Latin literature, but alsobroadened my appreciation and understanding o Western culture.As anyone who is (or is trying to be) a specialist in a field knows,a depth o knowledge ofen comes at the expense o a width. (Howsad it is to be like one poor graduate student who asked Reginaldinnocently, “Why does this dove always keep appearing in depic-tions o Jesus?”)

Armed only with our green Bible (Gildersleeve and Lodge’s Gram-mar) and our blue Bible (Lewis & Short’s Latin Dictionary), wedelved into Latin texts rom every period. We read classical Latinrom Nepos, Quintilian, Gellius, Lucretius, Phaedrus, Cicero, Cae-sar, Martial, Plautus, and Petronius. We read patristic and medieval



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Latin rom the Vulgate, Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine, Leo theGreat, Maximus, Abelard, Innocent III, and Tomas Aquinas, andrenaissance Latin rom Erasmus, Luther, Tomas Moore, Bembus,Pontanus, and Comenius. Tomas Pekkanen who broadcasts the

news in Latin rom Finland and John Paul II represented, amongothers, the modern use o Latin.

Foster himsel produces a great deal o modern Latin as one o theofficial Latinists or the Vatican. In his office, just down the corridorrom the private apartments o the Pope, he and a select team oothers translate various encyclical letters and ecclesial texts rom

the vernacular, usually Italian, into Latin. His handiwork can alsobe seen on various commemorative plaques around Vatican City. Inaddition, he teaches Latin to students at the Gregorian University.

I that were not enough, Reginaldus also rather excels as a tourguide. Nearly each Sunday o the summer experience, he led anyand all who would care to go on trips in and around Rome. For

instance, we read accounts o Caesar’s death on the very spot onwhich he was killed, set in context by the letters o Cicero andCaesar himsel. At Ostia Antica, where Monica and Augustineshared a mystical vision o the joys o beatitude, the correspondingselections o the Conessions were read. Among other wonders, we

visited the Papal summer residence, Castel Gondolo, and had aninsiders tour o the Vatican apartments where, among other won-ders, some o Raphael’s work remains secreted rom public view.

Another highlight o the summer was known as sub arboribus orunder the trees. Behind the Carmelite monastery, under the trees,our nights a week, we read together or had conversations omninoLatine. As we shared cookies and good Italian wine, the sun grewdim and the ancient language o Caesars and Pontiffs lived anewamid the distant noises o the city and local soccer matches. Obeata vita!

I received another letter rom the Director o the Medieval Instituterecently. With characteristic brevity it reads in ull: “I am delighted



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to inorm you that you have passed the recent Latin examination.You are now in a strong position to prepare or a uture disserta-tion in the Medieval Institute.” An evaluator o the examinationremarked to me: “Your Latinity has made a quantum leap.” Quid

dicas? Nihil nisi Deo et Reginaldo gratias.

Dr. Christopher Kaczor

Dear Reggie,

Tough never a member o your cohors praetoria, I was at least a

loyal pedes during a couple o summer campaigns. And a proudand grateul one, at that.

(Actually, there’s a small chance you may remember receiving let-ters, and a picture, rom my students o 2 years ago. Your response,by the way, in Latin, meant much to them. As it did to me.)

Mainly I’m writing, though, to say that even a humble pedes likeme lef your classes with something invaluable. I’m reerring to thetouchstone we got rom you - or lapis Lydius, or as the Greeks said,basanos. Meaning we had a standard: this is what devotion lookslike, this is what a true vocation looks like, this is what real intellec-tual passion looks like.

Tough I don’t ofen measure up, I know I’m a better teacher orhaving spent some time in the company o a true master.

Many many thanks or that. Best wishes and Happy Birthday.

David Simpson

We treasure the memories o our wonderul Latin experiences withyou in the mid-1990s. Tough neither o us made it beyond thethird experience, every time we see a Latin phrase we think o you.

Lisa Pon and Jim Amatruda



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Memories of Reggie

“You look into his eyes and you know he’s the smartest person

you’ll ever meet.” Tis is what one o my teachers—no mean Lati-nist himsel and a veteran o those mythical days when there wereonly ten students in the summer experience—told me about Regi-nald when we were swapping stories o our experiences in AestivaRomae Latinitas. Fifeen years afer I spent the summer in RomeI haven’t had reason to dispute this observation, except that I’llconess I always ound it hard to hold Reggie’s gaze so I’m not sure

I ever tested the specifics o the claim. In any case, I think all hisstudents will agree that one o the unorgettable things about study-ing with him is that moment when you realize that he knows thingsabout Latin, and I mean really knows, in a deep way, that no book,not even his beloved Lewis and Short, could ever teach. LorenzoValla-level stuff. What a privilege to have learned rom him and tohave him as a model or what is possible.

I have so many memories o that summer: Reginald roaring“DON’ ELL ME your students won’t ask you this!” or mischie-

vously, and a little gleeully, saying “You can’t go back!” when oneo us started a sentence that needed a dative with an infinitive. Tegruff dismissal o the modern scholars I venerated, which, thoughperhaps overstated, was nonetheless salutary when I was that age:

“None o these people knows anything A ALL.” I still use his line“I you learn Latin you learn everything” when a student makessome revelatory connection between the language and some aceto seemingly distant knowledge. Te multicolored pens used tocorrect our ludi domestici. Te little metal donkey, still on my desk,that he gave me afer I recited Remedia Amoris 213–224 to ourgroup. Swimming in the “river” (drainage trench?) in Arpinum

that he had us convinced was the very river that Cicero mentionsin de Legibus with Corinne Craword, who would later be my col-league and riend in graduate school and whose untimely death in2007 moved me all the more deeply because I had lost someonewith whom I had experienced that magical summer. And the wayReginald vanished, as i into thin air, on the train ride home rom



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the last trip on the last day, breaking our hearts but also, I some-times allow mysel to suspect when I remember the loneliness I eltat realizing that it was over and he was gone, saving his own heartrom breaking, thus preserving it or another year.

But in an important sense my teacher’s comment about Reggie’sintellect only tells hal the story (as I’m sure my teacher knew).Because the memory I cherish most is o the Mass he celebrated,in Latin o course, or our group in his monastery’s chapel near theend o our summer together. Gone was the snarling demeanor andthe demanding magister: his homily, filled with so many hopes or

all o us, his students, and or our world, was a proound blessing,not only because it came rom a man such as him but because itwas all expressed in glorious Latin that I could never have under-stood beore he had shown me how. He always rejected puttingLatin on a pedestal—non est lingua angelica he ofen said whenreminding us that Latin was a real, messy, language spoken by theprostitutes as well as by emperors—but when he used it to talk

about what was really important—loving each other and makingthe world a better place in small ways through the study o Latinand all the tradition it gives access to—it was truly a heavenly mes-sage. It took me a long time to realize that God was with us thatday—maybe not the God you hear about in church but certainlythe God that Reginald believes in and whose work he has done withand or his students every day o his lie, the same God who gaveReggie not only a mind to surpass all others but a heart as big asthe eternal city itsel. And this is perhaps his greatest gif to us, tomake us see that teaching Latin—because with Reggie it was alwaysactually about teaching Latin, not, as the press-coverage would haveit, about speaking Latin—is lie-giving, humanizing work, even, I’llsay it, sacred work.

So Happy Birthday, optime optimorum magister magistrorum;we may not know what you know, and ew o us can do what youdo, but our hearts are bigger, and our love or our students deeper,because you showed us how.

Curtis Dozier



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Dear Reginaldus:

I am so grateul to have had the opportunity to take your summerclass in Rome in 1994—your class and your methods o teach-

ing changed the way I think about language, literature, and evenmusic! At the time, I had just finished my junior year in college atSwarthmore, where I was a Latin major in the honors program, andI was in Rome during the spring semester studying at the Intercol-legiate Center or Classical Studies. I was very ortunate to be ableto stay in Rome or the summer, with assistance rom the MellonMinority Undergraduate Fellowship (now the Mellon-Mays). Your

class helped me achieve a level o fluency in Latin that I didn’t thinkpossible!

I went on to complete a Ph.D. in musicology rom Yale University.Although I am no longer in the academic field o Latin, I usethe skills rom your class every day as a musicologist. I nowhave tenure in the Jacobs School o Music at Indiana University;

my research ocuses on the reception o classical thought inlate seventeenth-century Rome—and the intersections betweenphilosophy, literature, art, and opera. Because we read rom sucha wide variety o authors in your class, I began to piece togetherliterary and philosophical ideas surrounding classical texts—and this led to a whole new understanding that influences myscholarship today. Furthermore, I absorbed as best as I couldyour teaching methods. Beore I had heard much discussion inacademia about “active learning,” I was trying to translate yourideas about active and passive engagement in language to themusic classroom. Tis allowed me to look at music rom multipleangles so that I could model different interpretive strategies or mystudents and give them opportunities to try the same ideas.

I cannot thank you enough or your kindness, your encouragement,your generosity, and or sharing your deep knowledge o Latin!Cheers—here’s to a wonderul birthday celebration!

Ayana Smith



18

At the beginning o the First Experience at the Gregorian Univer-sity, Reginald said to the gathered throng o students, “ I want youto all in love with Latin…” He then swifly proceeded to achievehis wish, by means, exempli gratia, o his ingenious, original way

o teaching the language, his extraordinarily riveting classroompresence, his hilarious and outrageous sense o humor, his abilityto know every student in the room by name (and by strengths andneeds), the unmatched clarity o his explanations, the variety oauthors and texts he introduced, his own evident passion or thelanguage, et al. It is a challenge sine fine to try to delineate or ullyencompass the techniques, methods, or qualities that make Regi-

nald the brilliant teacher that he is. Tus I have to omit mentiono the ludi domestici, the classroom reading sheets, the avoidanceo memorization and insistence on thinking and logic, the reusalto cram the grammar into a single year, the power o his voice asan instrument o teaching, the extra classes during vacations, thetrips, the walks and other outings in Rome, the singing, the roleo the taxi driver in the Largo Argentina or the driver o the 64

Bus, the memorable sayings, and so on. “I you have Latin, you canopen the door to the Renaissance; without Latin you’re nowhere!”With the learning o Latin, Rome itsel began to yield up treasures,inscribed all over its monuments and acades and on the walls andfloors o its churches. From reading the city to reading the authors,previously shut doors opened, bringing unending delight andamazement. From one who had the glorious opportunity to spendthree and a hal years at the Gregorian and to participate in all fiveExperiences there, and also to attend Aestiva Romae Latinitas, pro-oundest admiration, devotion, and gratitude to Reginald!

Ruth Bell

“Verum ut transeundi Reginaldum spes non sit, magna tamen estdignitas subsequendi. Pessime de rebus humanis perductae in sum-mum artes mererentur, si quod optimum, idem ultimum uisset.”

Adapted from Quintilian XII.11.28

Charles McNamara



19

Propinemus Igitur Propinemus, igitur, nobis hac in schola,Exsiccetur protinus lagoena nostra.

Paenitet nos brevitatisScholae finisque aestatis.Sumus proecturi,Sumus proecturi. Primum sub arboribus tacebamus omnesSucum et in capita undebant arbores.

Stimulabat magister,Coepimus nos leviterNare sine cortice,Nare sine cortice. Ille dixit, “Facite vos permetiaminiViam hinc Pientiam visum Picolomini.”

Gubernator timebat,Claustrum nobis negabatam angusto tramite,am angusto tramite.

Fruebamur Formias periucund’ itinere,Sed manebat noster dux perditus in litore.

Percontati ubique,Nacti sumus deniqueIracundum valde,Iracundum valde. Propinamus igitur Reginaldo nostro,Gratias iam agimus optimo magistro.

Potiemur nunc mundiSemper memores tuiCras incipiemusCras incipiemus.

Students of Summer 2006



20

I. Modus Operandi:

1. Changes pitch o voice to emphasize certain Latin passages; itbecomes nasal and ironic.

2. Oral reactions to students reading: brrrr! OUCH! OH! (whensomeone mispronounces a word, like persuadere with the accent onthe wrong syllable) Hah hah! Eh! Sh heh eh eh!

3. Gestures with everything he says; sculpts sentences in Latin,stroking away rom his chin (bah), pushing over his shoulder tosigniy pluperect, pointing with his finger up and descending witheach part o the sentence (jabbing), ofen finishing with a big flour-ish o a scoop.

4. Gestures to the door i someone makes a grammatical aux

pas: Out! Psst!

Reggie-isms

John Ziolkowski

Reginaldum nunc canamusEt magistrum optimum,Glabrum capite, sed menteIntellegentissimum!Numquam non docet LatineAlumnorum catervas,

Laeti qui ab eo discuntDelibatas abulas.O magister celebrande,

e discipuli amant Multosque elices annos ibi ex corde optant!

Carmen de ReginaldoCelebrando

Andrei Gotia

o be sung to the tune “O My Darling Clementine” or “Ode o Joy.”



21

Cum anno 2007 Valahridi Stroh librum q.i. “Lingua Latina mor-tua est – vivat lingua Latina!” legerem, statim decrevi me denuolinguæ Latinæ, quam olim in schola didiceram, tradere. Postquamergo epistulam invitatoriam quattuor coloribus conscriptam ac-cepi æstate proxima Romam petivi ut Reginaldi abulosæ scholæbimestri intersim. antæ uerunt impressiones illarum septimana-rum ut ad hunc diem vivide recorder institutiones, condiscipulos,

magistrum ipsum.

Valde admiratus sum docendi methodum qua primum discipulisquæstiones grammaticales acit, deinde oveam parat et tunc, siquis inciderit, clamat: “Eheu! Lingua Latina te occidet! Omni sen-tentiæ ovea inest. Una littera te occidere potest!” Nonnulli discipulidixerunt clamitationes eius se in somnium persequi et se deinde

sudore multo fluentes expergisci. amen nos omnes magistrumnostrum valde amavimus quia humanissime et iocose nos tractavit.

Altera ex causa illa Æstiva Romæ Latinitas 2008 omnibus qui illoanno aduerunt penitus inhærescit in mente, nam Reginaldus acrepidine viaria lapsus emur regit et itaque nonnullas septimanasin valetudinario versari coactus est. Institutionis finis præcox iam

imminebat cum Jason Pedicone et Leah Whittington nobis auxilio venerunt. Reginaldi animum æmulantes operam et oleum perdereminime timuerunt cum nos docerent. Iam vidi quantam vim iismagister noster annis præteritis instillaverat.

Antea Reginaldus me rogavit num ipse linguam Latinam docerem.Negavi, nam mihi soli linguam discere videbar. Postea autem

consilium mutavi cum intellegerem doctrinam utique necessariamesse ut lingua Latina viveret. Ergo munus magistri subii primumadultos, tunc etiam adulescentes in gymnasio quodam Germanicodocens. Circulum Latinum Monacensem condidi ut mihi semel inmense occasio loquendi esset, et una cum amicis doceo in septima-nis Latinis Europæis sermonem Latinum Latine. Munus pristinum

Quantum ponderis Reginaldushabuerit in vita mea Latina



22

Uwe Springman

deposui ut linguæ Latinæ studerem. Nuperrime mihi contigit utnovum munus acciperim de litteris Latinis ope methodis computa-toriis tractandis.

Hæcne omnia fieri potuissent nisi illo anno Reginaldi discipulusuissem? Iam antea amore Latinitatis affectus eram. Sed Reginaldusmihi exemplo erat quomodo discipulis Latinitatis vim perpetuammonstrarem et illius linguæ amorem inflammarem. Non dubitoquin me ipsum incitaverit ut vitam meam Latinitati darem!

Christopher Brunelle

Gaudeas laetitia et amicis cinctus!

Quominus te videam sum ortuna vinctus.Pro me versus veniat tua laude tinctus;ut Psalmistae precibus odoreris hinc tus.

Fero munus humile sedes ad supernas;tu, largitor optime, hoc ne quaeso spernas.Docuisti pangere linguas hodiernas

linguae priscae gloriam, quod in nobis cernas.

Prime sine paribus rex et super reges,Reginalde, sator es; sumus alta seges.Prospera nunc ominor, quae tu nolim neges:

vitam Latinissimam, ut degisti, deges!

Goliardics for Rego be sung to the tune ‘Good King Wenceslas’



23

I have always elt great admiration or the unbelievable natural easewith which Reginald relates to the Latin language and its literarytradition. I consider the ollowing two anecdotes to be vivid exam-ples o what I have in mind.

Vatican Radio used to air a radio program called “Te Latin Lover.”In each show, Reginald would discuss some aspect o the Latin

tradition with an interviewer. On one occasion, Reginald said, “Andthen – bing, bang, bum, bam – Corinth was destroyed.” Te interviewer immediately jumped at this phrase and asked, “‘Bing, bang,bum, bam’ – how do you say that in Latin?” I remember thinkingto mysel: “How would anyone be able to translate that into Latin?”But beore I have even concluded my thought, Reginald replies:“Dictum actum: Corinthus deleta est.” He only had to think or

a short moment and a ully adequate Latin equivalent or “Bing,bang, bum, bam” had come to his mind!

Te other story took place when Reginald took the eminent clas-sical scholar Andreas Tierelder on a trip to a Ciceronian sitesomewhere in the Roman Campagna. For the entire day, both othem were speaking Latin with each other. At some point the bus

stopped because some o their ellow travelers needed to make wa-ter. Tierelder also got out o the bus although he did not seem inneed o a restroom. His explanation was memorable: “Si [or dum]socius mingit, aut tu minge aut mingere finge.” Later on, when theyhad arrived at the Ciceronian site, Tierelder was deeply impressedand said that, i it were not or Reginald, he would never have seenthis wonderul place. I always had the eeling that something o the

personality o Tierelder crystallized around this anecdote. Teman whose revisions o Menge’s Greek and Latin prose composi-tion books I had been consulting time and again suddenly stoodbeore me as a living human being.

Reginald knows countless other stories about people like Cicero,

“bing, Bang, Bum, Bam” and Andreas Thierfelder



24

Tobias Joho

St. Augustine, Pius II, and all his other avorites. I cannot think oany real difference between these stories, which Reginald knowsthrough his reading, and the Tierelder anecdote, which comesrom lived experience. Tere is no difference because Reginald real-

ly lives with the Latin authors and their books. Reginald likes to saythat, i one reads Cicero’s letters or Plautus’s comedies, one hearsthe Romans “talking on the phone.” I think this conviction o hisshows how the two anecdotes hang together: Reginald’s intimacywith all those who have contributed to the Latin tradition derivesin great part rom his stunning knowledge o the Latin language.It is as i, through their shared amiliarity with Latin, Reginald and

the other representatives o the Latin tradition breathe the same air.Trough Reginald’s model and his teaching, his students have beenable to develop a similar relationship with the great Latin writers. Isee us, Reginald’s students, joined by Cicero, Erasmus, and all theothers when we wish Reginald a happy birthday. Tank you verymuch, Reginald, or putting so many people in contact with thethoroughly human vitality o the Latin tradition!

Dear Father Foster, As I wrote to you in a letter last year, you have had an amazing

impact on my lie and those o my entire amily. Not only was thesummer I spent in your class (Aestiva Romae Latinitas 2004) one omy most treasured experiences, but that is where I met my hus-band. Afer our summer in Rome, I returned to finish my under-grad degree in Classics at Cornell, then taught middle school Latinin New Jersey or a ew years, while Seamus finished his PhD atDalhousie. We kept in touch, and I moved to St. John’s, Newound-

land in 2008. We are still living in St. John’s, and Seamus is teachingPhilosophy at Memorial University. We got married in 2012 andhad a daughter, Annie, in 2013.

However, there has been a new development since my letter lastyear - just three months ago, we welcomed our second daughter,



25

Jane. Both Annie and Jane are destined to learn some Latin soon!Te names o their stuffed animals ofen garner questions romriends – Virgil, Dante, Pliny, Cicero, & Sulla, to name a ew.

While our daily use o Latin has regrettably waned, we think o youand our time in Rome ofen and ondly. I look orward to takingour girls there some day and telling them how we met. I regret thatwe are not able to be there in DC or the reunion and hope that unis had by all who do make it. Happy birthday and thank you oreverything you have done or us!

Catherine O’Neill

At the end o summer in 2007, I flew back rom Rome to Vancou- ver afer a summer in Reginald’s Aestiva Latinitas. I had just movedinto a new apartment with new roommates and, afer a summer odelicious Mediterranean weather and immersion in an enclave oserious Latinists, I was acing down another year o endless, dismalrain and hopeless unemployment. Desperate or solace, I picked upDan Brown’s Angels and Demons (which one o my roommates hadlef on the coffee table) and raced through it, ignoring the intrigueand murder (which were pretty insipid anyway) but devouring

the descriptions o the art, architecture, and geography o Rome.When I tell people I missed Rome so much it drove me to readingDan Brown, they get some sense o how much o an impact FatherFoster’s class made on my lie.

It was an outstanding class, and it’s easy to understand why. Tewhole model o studying Latin in Rome--ofen on the same sites

where the course readings were written or set or delivered--makesan incredible difference. Reading about Caesar’s death while stand-ing at Pompey’s Curia, or about Cicero’s murder at his villa inFormia, brings an immediacy and vividness to the texts that I neverexperienced at home. I will never orget our day at Ostia Antica. Westarted the day reading about Aeneas (and the white “sow”) at the

Nihil Longe est Deo



26

site’s entryway, ollowed by selections rom Plautus and Cicero andso many others as we moved through the ruins o the ancient city.At the end o the day Reginald took us to the hotel made amous inAugustine’s Conessions, in which Monica comes to a final decision

about where she wants to be buried. Sitting in the green grass, on alovely early summer day, with wildflowers and wild herbs growingall around us and the ruins o an ancient hotel surrounding us, weread Monica’s dilemma o whether she wanted to be buried at homeor in Ostia, at the end o which she has a grand revelation o nihillonge est Deo, and concedes to be buried in Ostia where she died.It was extraordinary to listen to Monica’s words about how little

geography mattered, even as we were experiencing just how muchit mattered to be reading those words, there and then.

Still, beyond the geographical vividness o the course, and beyondthe ocus on Latin as a living language, and beyond the excellentintellectual community, what really made the greatest impressionon me that summer was Reginald’s appreciation o Latin or its own

sake. I can still hear him, reeling off a passage o Horace or Quin-tillian in class, ollowed by the exclamation “Can’t you just hear it,my riends?” For all that I learned in his class about the proper useo Latin idioms or exercises to spring on my uture students (sevenwords or everything!), what I would most want to pass on to myuture students is that appreciation or the magnificence o Latin,the idea that we don’t need to justiy the study o Latin in terms oSA scores or AP credit or college admissions because it is beauti-ul in any case. It requires no other justification.

At the end o that summer I had to leave Rome behind and returnto Vancouver, and I had to carry mysel though a difficult year onthe strength o photos and memories and terribly inane novels.Even i, as Monica reminds us, nihil est longe Deo, it has alwaysbeen necessary or me to keep Rome close to my heart, to remem-ber what Reginald taught us sub arboribus, and to envision myselin an appropriate place whenever I open a Latin text.

A. Everett Beek



27

Cui novam dono lepidam hanc opellamarduam pol atque laboriosam?Silviae cuius libuit merentisdicere laudes.

Namque colligit comites benigne,perugas paucos vetere ex caterva,et domus praebet studiis Latinisblanda Minerva.

Per Seres Mauros Arabasque et Indosconvenimus huc pueri ac puellaetempora ut seri repetamus actagrata Lycei.

Dulcis Agnes o senior sodalis,sola si nobis numeratur aetas,mentis at rarae tua vincit annos

mira iuventa.

Iuris o sacri decus et magister,candide et pudens sapiensque Hiberne,nil obest tibi peregrina linguacompede dura.

Ad Silviam

Te following poem by Dr Giovanni Centurelli is published by kind permission of his widow. Giovanni was a hospital doctor in Rome

who loved Latin and followed Reginald’s classes at the GregorianUniversity for about ten years. Te poem was addressed to me, Silvia,about the year 2000. All the people mentioned in the poem had alsobeen faithful students of Fr. Foster in Rome for many years, except forDulcis Agnes. Fr. Michael Carragher is mentioned as the Iuris sacridecus, and Paule refers to Dr Paolo Joni, the thoracic surgeon.

With most affectionate greetings from Silvia Gavuzzo-Stewart



28

At age orty I returned to teaching English and quickly realized

there seemed to be a need or Latin teachers. I promptly set aboutto add Latin to my teaching credentials. Afer a lovely but rigorousadventure, I became certified in Florida and Virginia. My husbandthen remarked that it was about time I should study at ‘that Latinsummer school in Rome’.

I arrived in Rome on June 3, 1996, on medication or thyroiditis

and on newly prescribed thyroid supplements as my doctor hadsaid, “I don’t want you to miss this study opportunity. I think you’llbe fine.” So I landed in Rome old, exhausted, terrified, jetlagged,somewhat under the weather, and on antibiotics and trial meds.Afer a day o resting and scoping out the terrain, I crept into theclass on its third day.

Plodding, methodical and quite thorough by nature, I have neverbeen known or rapidfire responses. But that day, things settledinto the class routine and Reginaldus soon asked me a airly com-plex question in Latin. Te correct response popped out o mymouth with terriying speed. He thought, I am sure, that he had atlast ound ‘Cicerona’. And I have ofen pondered and repeatedly

Dr. Giovanni Centurelli

u neque hic spernis sociare nobiscum graves sinunt tibi, Paule, curaeaegra qui soles aperire saevuspectora cultro.

Denique ultimum memoro poetamcondidit qui versiculos Latinenomini et tuo proprium dicavit,Silvia, carmen.

Gratias enim tibi nos habemus

comis hospes quae reoves amicos,cum simul tecum recolunt Latinos,dulcibus atris.



29

rejected trying to recreate those conditions!

I taught Latin or twenty years and elt very blessed to have had thatturn in my lie. Pivotal in my lie was dear Father Reggie’s influ-

ence and that summer in Rome. I did not at that time think howprooundly it had affected my deeper thought processes, but ofenconnect it in an underlying way to our conversion to the CatholicChurch in April o 2000. Now that has prooundly affected bothour lives. Gratias tibi, Reginalde, et Felicem Diem natalem!

Loretta Fleming

Quisnam apte longeue gesta beneficiaque in nos eius, quisque uer-bis humanitatem proerre queat? Egomet spem non habeo, uiribusdeficientibus penitus. Quid ergo nos? Num adsistamus taciti? Innu-merosi sunt qui eius ad pedes per annos hiantes sederunt, permultiauente eo humaniores acti sunt nam adulti sunt eius sub umbra

arborumque, robustiores nunc animis.

Faciant igitur alii magistro de eo clarissimo testes, hominis malimego laudes circa indolem moresque canere. Nam tot abhinc annosLatinitati studere cupiens ad Reginaldum scripsi, et uariis ab eoreceptis litteris dicentibus eum me bracchiis amplexurum apertis,proectus primum in urbem. unc autem non tantum litteris eram

imbecillus sed corpore quoque gracilis. Magna in schola erga mepatientia, haud minus nutriuit ipse autor corpus meum. Quotiensinter ludos cum eramus in thermopolio prope scholam, digito inme destinato, porrexit poclum mihi ceruisiae uocierans, ecce, tollehoc, tu es macerior!

Serius cum me amica Romae uisitabat, lepide nos hospites duxit

per Pontificis palatium. Fruentibus nobis in aream Sancti Petri eenestra conspectu, uertit ad nos quasi cantu dicens, tantulum uini,coitus tantulum, omnia prosperant!

Alio tempore Romae mea cum matre conloquens uxore diaconimethodistae plane pronuntiauit: nihil mea reert religio, sis tantum



30

bona! Stupens tum miratus sum hac gauisam matrem sententiareectamque ab eadem nutantem ac ridentem, gestientem ere.

Ut sciunt complures, Reginaldi benignitas non numquam et ad

asperitatem accedit. In itinere ad uillam Horatii, stetimus in pro-pinquo oppido ut uictum emeremus. Omnium pretium soluereiste omnino uoluit, sed urtim conatus sum saltim aliqua emere.Cum inuenit consilium meum, subito in me saeuiit clamitans: siquidquam comparaveris, numquam te in scholam rursus admittam!

Paucis post annis cum uxorem ducerem, unctus est ipse ritu in

ecclesia Sanctae Mariae trans iberim, sed ad habendam caeri-moniam hora praescripta, opus uit mihi sermone scholae aesti-uae discipulis Latine persuadere ut eum ad tempus templumquede Ianiculo dimitterent. Illac in capella Aldobrandinorum dictaconuiuis praesentibus discipulisque nos duos monuit: estote bonine eueniatis prima in pagina actorum diurnorum! Sed paululo postnobis benedicturo inclinans ei sussuraui, “Magister, sumus tres.”

Illico sapiens genu flecto lene coniugis ambabus tenens manibusuentrem coram cunctis amanter osculatus est benedixitque nobistribus cunctis. Postea uero ad dapes uenire recusauit.Anno tandem peracto cursulum habuit apud Belli Montis uniuersi-tatem, quo conecto ii ut eum conuenirem. Cum peruenissem cumdelphina filiola, nos calide salutauit et poposcit an cuperemus utMissam nostri ergo diceret. Sane, respondi. um sedens in capellaparuula conuentus ipse una cum Daniele nostro Gallagher duo-bus pro nobis haereticis priuatim Missam dixit, dehinc in cauponaprandimus omnes iucunde inter iocos abulasque antiquitus. Sedcoetu perecto domum mecum reuertens retulit mihi filia mea deautore isto meo: “ata, scisne ut firme me strinxit manu? Adhucnimium dolet!”Hoc enim modo Reginaldus se non solum in animum meum sedetiam in totam amiliam inseruit, multosque puto idem expertosesse. Quippe nos huiusmodi abulae illius omnes iungunt ut amil-iam. Quid quidem cunctamur? Eum nostrum ducem celebremusamicumque, patrem ac nutritorem! Eius nam numquam debitumpossimus soluere, nihil natura nisi amoris. David U. B. Liu



31

Fabula Magistri Inflati

[bibit ]... semper eadem historia est in eo quod adhas orationes pertinet...aliquid de ecclesia...aliquidde Pontifice decessore...Quot eci ego tot annis?...nescio...[bibit et murmurat ]...Paulus Sextus, JohannesPaulus Primus, Johannes Paulus Secundus...

[ pulsat portam] Reginalde!

...aliquid de parvulis...aliquid de pace....bi beh boobuuugh...[bibit ]

Reginalde! Reginalde! Ecquid audis?

Au! Adsum, quid tum? [introit Iohannes]

Reginalde! Conclave te elegit pontificem!

Stercus tauri! Stercoris plenus es tu, Iohannes. Sem-per joculator es.

Non, non, Reginalde. Re vera! Conclave [Reginaldus grunnit ]elegit [Reginaldus grunnit ]decrevit [Reginaldus grunnit ]declaravit [Reginaldus grunnit ]

nominavit [Reginaldus grunnit ]creavit [Reginaldus grunnit]ecit [Reginaldus grunnit ]te ... Pontificem! [Reginaldus grunnit magna voce]

Num iocus est? vel error? Conclave alterum

Reginaldus:

Iohannes:

Reginaldus:

Iohannes:

Reginaldus:

Iohannes:

Reginaldus:

Iohannes:

Reginaldus:

Scaena I: Habemus Papam

[Reginaldus solus in scaena aliquid scribit ]



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Reginaldum velle non tibi videtur?

Nullo modo! u es Pontiex et Papa noster! Quidnomen tibi impones?

Ego Pontiex? [bibit ] Egomet? Fieri non potest!

Itaque!

Ego Pontiex? Mirabile dictu! Quis hoc cogitaverit?Bene, bene, si Deus ita vult, et Conclave...Fiat!

Postremo, quid nomen tibi impones?

Quid nomen mihi imponam? Pius non sum, Clem-ens esse nolo...Leo ero!

[ad spectatores] Habemus Papam! Qui sibi nomen

imposuit Leonem Decimum Quartum! [ad Leonem]Veni, Papa Leo, ad Cardinales adloquendos.

Vivat Papa Leo Decimus Quartus!

Semper vivat Papa noster!

Bene, bene, hinc invitissimus accipio....illinc gratias vobis ago....[silentio fit. Iohannes dat paginam Leoni,deinde exit ]Venerabiles Fratres Nostri,dilectissimi ratres ac sorores in Christo,

vos universi homines bonae voluntatis!

Reginaldus:

Iohannes:

Reginaldus:

Reginaldus:

Iohannes:

Iohannes:

Iohannes:

Scaena II: Fratres in Christo

[Iohanni et Leone circumambulantibus in scaena, introeunt cardina-les stantque. Duobus revertentibus cardinales applaudunt ]

Cardinalis I:

Cardinalis II:

Leo XIV:



33

Gratia copiosa et pax vobis! Duo animum Nostrumdiscordes sensus hoc tempore una simul subeunt.Nam ex una parte humano turbamento perundimuret impares....[Breviter tacet ]

Quidnam inerorum est hoc? Quis istud scripsit?Adiiciendum purgandumque est! [ad latus iacit paginam] Nihil valent purgamenta istaec. Ex cordemeo loquar, urbi et orbi, vobis cardinalibus, clericis,laicis, omnibusque hominis! Omnes homines intel-legent quae dixero. Ut dixit Cicero, quamvis divina-rum litterarum expers uerit... [suspiciens tacet ] Au!

Ubi sumus? Me sequimini? u! Quali tempore est verbum “uerit”?

Egomet?

Certissime “tumet”! u ipse! Quid acis? Quali tem-pore est?

“uerit”?

Ita! Perge!

empore sexto?

Mehercule! empore sexto? Quilibet canis in via vi-dere potest “uerit” esse tempore tertio conjunctivo!e cardinalem esse putas? Nonne est cardinalibusaliquid sciendum? Au! ace et abi! Et tu? Quid sig-nificat “divinarum litterarum expers”? Responde!

Significat quod Cicero divinas litteras bene cognovit.

Ah si? Itane arbitraris? Di vostram fidem, quammale loqueris! “significat quod”! Quis umquam taliaaudivit purgamenta? Et tu? Quid putas?

Cardinalis I:

Cardinalis I:

Cardinalis I:

Cardinalis II:

Leo XIV:

Leo XIV:

Leo XIV:

Leo XIV:



34

Aliter respondere nescio! Nonne cognovit Cicerobene litteras omnibus modis?

Frutex! Quo pacto cognovisset Cicero divinas lit-

teras cum prius mortuus sit quam Christus natusest? Nemone potest mihi explicare “expers”? [Silen-tium fit ] Finiti estis! Omnes! Ad aeroportum abite,non cardinales cuiuslubet tabernae esse valete, ut deecclesia taceam. Foras omnes!

Sanusne es? Nos omnes dimittere non potes! Sumus

cardinales ecclesiae Catholicae totae!

“otae”? Quam ormam habet “otus” casu in geni-tivo? “totae”? Ah si? Eheu! Custos Helvetice! Venihuc, quaeso!

Quid vult sanctitas tua, pater Christianorum?

Primum obliviscere has “sanctitas tua” nugas, sednunc istos, qui ecclesiae totius cardinales uerunt,duc amabo ad aeroportum. [Custos Helveticus car-dinales hasta sua eiicit ] Malum! Usque ad cardinalesnemo bene cognoscit linguam Latinam! Aliquidaciendum est mihi. Scio! Rogare oportet amicasmeas, quae semper mihi consilium bonum dent.Oooh! [saltat ] Attractio Modi! “dent”...

Reginalde! Salve vir optime!

Quantum tempus non nos visisti! Quid, novas ami-cas habes?

Cardinalis III:

Custos Helv.:

Leo XIV:

Leo XIV:

Cardinalis III:

Leo XIV:

Scaena III: Amicae Meae

[Leo circumambulat in scaena. Introeunt meretrices]

Meretrix I:

Meretrix II:



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Quid agebas interea? Quo modo discunt discipulilinguam Latinam? Opus est pecunia pro eis?

Non tibi nobiscum esse placet? Vel non placet cum

nobis esse?

Accipe hoc pro discipulis. [offert pecuniam]

Amicae, non audivistis? Pontiex actus sum!

Non dicis! Semper joculator es, mi Reginaldule!

Ego etiam vix credo, sed re vera actus sum. Et nuncsollicitor propter statum linguae Latinae! Ne cardina-les quidem eam bene sciunt. Vos etiam pro linguaesollicitas scio et ad vostrum auxilium expetendum

veni. Quid acere possumus?

e pontifice haud difficilis est res. Omnium oculite aspiciunt. Nonne habes audientiam generalemunoquoque die Mercurii?

Utere hoc tempore ad Latinam legendam! Populi tesequentur et te exemplo Latinam cognoscere volent!

Haud mala est sententia vestra! Fiat. Ita aciam.Gratias vobis ago.

Quandolubet, Reginaldule.

Dicite, quid acitis die?

Paene nihil, quare?

Optime! Cardinalibus novis opus est mihi, et mer-entes proecto essetis, perectaeque. Itidem illi nihilaciebant die vel nocte. Venite, cardinales novae,

Meretrix I:

Meretrix I:

Meretrix II:

Leo XIV:

Meretrix II:

Leo XIV:

Meretrix I:

Meretrix II:

Meretrix II:

Meretrix II:

Leo XIV:

Leo XIV:

Leo XIV:



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ad primam audientiam meam parandam! [Exeuntomnes]

And the Holy Father wishes to greet groups andpilgrims rom South Bend [ Audientes applaudunt

surguntque] and rom Broken Bay [ Audientes applau-dunt surguntque] and rom Steubenville [ Audientesapplaudunt surguntque] and rom ....

Quidnam inerorum est hoc stercus?

Quaeso?

Loquimini omnes Latine! Vos – Southbendienses –quid acitis hic? Quidve vultis Romae? Quare nonmansistis domi et oravistis? [ Audientes sunt in con- fusione] Iohannes, da eis paginas has. Bene, bene.[Iohannes dat paginas audientibus] Ubi sumus?Haec est epistula Senecae, ad amicum eius Lucilium!Sumusne una omnes? u – lege!

a...ta...tamen...tamen tu indígnaris...

indignáris!

indignáris alíquid...

áliquid!

áliquid aut queréris...

Scaena IV: Audientia Inaudita

[Introeunt sedent exspectantque Audientes. Leo XIV, Iohannes, Car-dinales Novaeque introeunt ex altera parte scaenae et sedent.]

Iohannes:

Leo XIV:

Iohannes:

Leo XIV:

Leo XIV:

Leo XIV:

Audiens I:

Audiens I:

Audiens I:



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quéreris!

quéreris et non intellégis...

intéllegis! [ Audiens I flere incipit ] Bene, bene, nonest culpa tua. Ne fle. Numquam didicisti linguamLatinam. [ Audientes solliciti fugiunt ]

Papa Leo, non potes immutare audientiamgeneralem in lectionem Latinitatis!

Quare non? Papa Reggie, quis est ille?

[ad Leonem] Quisve sunt mulierculae istae, PapaLeo? Quare non tacent et manent domi ut decetmulieres?

Quidnam inerorum dixisti?

[ad Meretricem] ranquille! [ad Iohannem] Cardina-les Novae sunt “mulierculae istae”! [Iohannes anhelatalbescitque] Bene, bene. Cardinales, cum Iohanneoportet me loqui aliquantulum remotis arbitris. [ex-eunt Cardinales Novae]

Papa Leo, quid acis? Mulieres, et tales, in collegiocardinalium? Audientia generalis Latine? Populus

vult te videre, te audire....

Me Latine loquentem videbunt! Finita est historia.Bene, accipe hoc. [dat paginam quandam Iohanni]

Leo XIV:

Audiens I:

Leo XIV:

Scaena V: Quae Mutatio Rerum

[Leo XIV, Iohannes, Cardinales Novae manent in scaena]

Iohannes:

Leo XIV:

Meretrix I:

Iohannes:

Meretrix I:

Iohannes:

Leo XIV:



38

[Legit ] Quid? Quintillianum Haydnque sanctos a-cis? Hoc non potes! Nemo aperuit eorum causas!

Ah si? Non possum?

Haydn nullum habet miraculum, atque Quintilianuserat paganus! Non potes paganos sanctos declarare!

Care Iohannes, tibi novum munus habeo...Caloraestatis non tibi prodest Romae...mitto te in missio-nem...ad Christianos sanctosque aciendos...pengui-

nos!

Paganos!?! Ad quos paganos me mittis?

Penguinos! Habes ab hodie parochiam tuam inAntarctica!

Non potes mihi hoc infligere! Es pontiex delirans![Exit currens flensque]

Quem aciam sanctum proximum? Erasmum nos-trum? vel Iordanem Brunonem? [Exit ]

Salvete. Vos spectatis Nuntia Vulpis. Ego sum Mag-nolia Arbor renuntians Roma. His ultimis mensibus,omnes homines, Catholici vel non, laici vel clerici,se interrogant quid novi Leonem Decimum Quar-tum, Romanum Pontificem post hominum memo-riam controversissimum, acturum esse. Collegiocardinalium dimisso, cardinalibus novis eminis,quae secundum quosdam mala ama sint, actis,audientiis generalibus in linguae Latinae lectionem

Iohannes:

Leo XIV:

Iohannes:

Iohannes:

Iohannes:

Leo XIV:

Leo XIV:

Leo XIV:

Scaena VI: Litterae Encyclicae

[Introit sedetque elevisionis Presentator ]

Presentator:



39

conversis, non nulli cogitaverunt nihil controversiusfieri posse. Sed Papa Leo, post quam omnes laicosperturbaverat epistula encyclica eius “Boni Estoteacetoteque”, omnes clericos, praesertim Romanam

Curiam, epistula encyclica “Stercore Abundans” o-enderat, quid ecit hodie? Quis relinquitur quemPontiex offendere possit? Hodie theologi philos-ophique nesciunt quid de nostro Papa dicere. In suisnovissimis Encyclicis Litteris “Nisi Fallor”, Papa LeoDecimus Quartus sollemniter ex cathedra declaravitPontificem Romanum inallibiliter declarare non

posse! Paradoxum mirabile! Inallibiliter dictum estaut non? Omnes re vera se interrogant, quid noviacturum esse Pontificem Papam Leonem DecimumQuartum. Solum tempus ostendet! Hoc solum sci-mus: Quidquid acit, Latine aciet!

“Latin is a total experience!”

“Isn’t it nice to know there are things we don’t know?”“Latin is never going to be automatic!”“Force yoursel to speak Latin daily!”“Latin is the most conusing language in the world, so you sit downand figure it out!”“Ecclesiastes is a nice guy; he had problems in lie. I could share abeer with him. I like his solutions too.”

“You can’t teach Latin style--just read and imitate authors and beyoursel!”“Te Greeks were dreamers and stupid idiots!”“Latin is super-practical!”“You can train orangutans to say this very well!”“Jesus was a disaster as a teacher. Obviously. On the mountain He

Students of Summer 2004

Finis

Reggie Quotes, 2007



40

collected by Andrei Gotia

Res se conficiunt, metam petit aestus acerbam Egrediemur mox. Lacrima de omni oculoGaudio agente simul labetur tristitiaque. Intuituri non haec nisi mente sumus.Non aegre at erimus, tanto potius gavisuri A gnaro nobis quanto ea tradita sunt.Lingua Latina ligat quamvis lustrabimus orbem. Donorum causa pancratice gradimur.

Jason Pedicone

was lef alone!”“His (Pope Benedict XVI’s) own mother doesn’t understand hiswriting.”“I Cicero is not in heaven, I am leaving.”

“Latin is super-unctional. Te Colosseum is not a philosophicaldream.”“Latin done in the right way will change your lie and make you adifferent person.”“Let the Latin lead you, not your stupid ideas!”“I’ll be more charitable--I’ll come with a flame-thrower!”“Latin is a hopeless language--good luck!”



Documents

In Reginaldi Honorem, Liber Amicorum