Reginald Foster, Vatican Latinist Who Tweeted in the Language, Dies at 81 One of the world’s foremost experts on Latin, Father Foster was a monk who looked like a stevedore, dressed like a janitor and swore like a sailor. Reginald Foster in 2004 in his office in Rome. “You do not need to be mentally excellent to know Latin,” he once said. “Prostitutes, beggars and pimps in Rome spoke Latin, so there must be some hope for us.”Credit...Chris Warde-Jones Published Dec. 27, 2020Updated Dec. 28, 2020 Reginald Foster, a former plumber’s apprentice from Wisconsin who, in four decades as an official Latinist of the Vatican, dreamed in Latin, cursed in Latin, banked in Latin and ultimately tweeted in Latin, died on Christmas Day at a nursing home in Milwaukee. He was LXXXI.