Fr. Richard Cipolla remembers Fr. Reginald Foster OCD for the Catholic Herald. Fr. Foster -- the Vatican's chief Latinist for forty years, and one of the world's great characters -- exchanged time for eternity on Christmas Day, 2020. -Ed.
Those who love the Latin language were saddened to hear of the death of Father Reginald Foster on Christmas Day. It was heartening to see the many laudatory obituaries in the press and letters from those who knew Reginaldus, as he was known to his students.
Ever since I heard of his death, I knew that I had to write something myself about this remarkable man, whose influence on me was greater than he knew. It is not an exaggeration to say that the two summers I studied with Reginaldus in Rome changed my life. It was not only the Latin that I learned in those weeks under the hot Roman sun.
