MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
One of the world s most renowned experts on the Latin language died on Christmas Day in Milwaukee. For four decades at the Vatican, Father Reginald Foster translated papal speeches into Latin. He also made it his mission to instill passion in his students for the lingua franca of the Roman Empire. NPR s Sylvia Poggioli has this remembrance.
SYLVIA POGGIOLI, BYLINE: Reginald Foster was born in Milwaukee, the son of a plumber. He became a Carmelite monk and went on to serve four popes as the Vatican s foremost Latinist until he retired in 2009. In 1998, I joined him on a field trip to the seaside villa of the Roman orator Cicero, where he gave a toast to the master of rhetorical speech and to all lovers of Latin.
Reggie Foster, Latinist to 4 popes, dies at 81 The petrol guy defied convention, became cult teacher
28 Dicembre 2020
NEW YORK, DEC 28 - Father Reginald Foster, Latinist
to four popes and one of the world s top Latin teachers, died of
COVID on Christmas Day in his care home in Milwaukee.
He was 81.
Foster, who wrote, spoke, swore and tweeted in Latin, was
nicknamed by the Swiss Guards the petrol station guy because
of the worker s clothes he wore in defiance of apostolic pomp.
For over 40 years he worked in the Vatican translating
encyclicals, bulls and apostolic letters in the language he fell
in love with as a teenager.
The state of the Vatican City was created today in 1929. Katie Walker remembers learning Latin from Father Reginald Foster, Latinist to four popes, who sadly died on Christmas Day, aged 81.
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 turned 80 on 14th November 2019.
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
When Army veteran Reginald Foster and his wife Zenna opened their first Tropical Smoothie Cafe franchise in Augusta, Georgia, on Memorial Day of 2016, they had no prior restaurant experience. Now, the Fosters have five Tropical Smoothie Cafes, including the brandâs first military base location in Fort Gordon, Georgia, which opened in April 2019. Their most recent cafe opened on the Fort Benning military base, marking the brandâs 900
th location.
Reginald and Zenna had to make tweaks to the kitchen and back-of-house design for their first non-traditional site at Fort Gordon, such as designing a new system to efficiently store equipment and food in the tighter space. âFinding a design that works for small spaces helped us tremendously,â Reginald said, especially when opening up their future cafes.Â