Faith: December 2017 Archives
The Vatican's Latinist | The New Criterion
A profile of the Father Reginald Foster, who, for forty years, rendered documents of the Roman Catholic Church in its official language:
'A humanist par excellence, Latin for Foster was not something to be dissected by linguistic analysis or serve as the raw data for a theory of gender or poetics: it was a language, a medium of human connection. I first met Foster in 1995, at his summer school, and couldn't get enough: I returned seven times. No one on Earth was reading as much Latin as he and his students were, but he was more like an old-school newspaper editor than an academic: he wanted the story. But for that you actually had to know Latin, and know it well. Foster was ruthless about ignorance, and equally ruthless about anything that to him looked like mere academic posturing. "I don't care about your garbage literary theory!" he barked at his students one day. "I can tell in about ten seconds if you know the Latin or if you are making it all up." "Latin is the best thing that ever happened to humanity. It leaves you zero room for nonsense. You don't have to be a genius. But it requires laser-sharp concentration and total maturity. If you don't know what time of day it is, or what your name is, or where you are, don't try Latin because it will smear you on the wall like an oil spot." The number of Foster's students runs into the thousands, and many of them are now themselves some of the most dedicated teachers in the field. "When I was in college I asked people, 'Hey, we all know Latin is a language. Does anybody actually speak it anymore?' And they told me there was one guy, some guy at the Vatican, who still spoke the language, and that was Fr. Foster," says Dr. Michael Fontaine, a professor of Classics at Cornell University. "I said to myself, 'I have to study with this guy.' And that changed everything for me." Dr. Paul Gwynne, professor of Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the American University of Rome, said of Foster, "He is not just the best Latin teacher I've ever seen, he's simply the best teacher I've ever seen. Studying Latin with the Pope's apostolic secretary, for whom the language is alive, using the city of Rome as a classroom . . . it changed my whole outlook on life, really.'
The Most Subtle Form of Pride | Desiring God
Greg Morse writes: "Smallness in our own eyes is a virus mimicking humility that tempts some of us to do the same as Saul. He knew the command, saw the sheep being taken away -- but, who was he to tell them otherwise? He was a nothing, a no one, an ant. He did not consider that the Lord made him king or that the Lord sent him on a mission. He was to rise to the occasion, not because he was grand, but because the King who he served was.
"Smallness in his own eyes, a sinking sense of inferiority, fueled his and the people's transgression. He shirked responsibility because he did not feel equal to it and his cowardice endangered his people and he eventually lost his kingship as a result.
"Humility says, 'I am small . . . but my God is big, so I will go, speak, and do.' Cowardice, pride, and self-preoccupation say, 'I am puny, others are more qualified, I don't want to screw things up for myself and others by accepting.'"
