The Latin Letters Office is a department of the Roman Curia's Secretariat of State of the

Holy See The Holy See ( lat, Sancta Sedes, ; it, Santa Sede ), also called the See of Rome, Petrine See or Apostolic See, is the jurisdiction of the Pope in his role as the bishop of Rome. It includes the apostolic episcopal see of the Diocese of Rome ...

Vatican City Vatican City (), officially the Vatican City State ( it, Stato della Città del Vaticano; la, Status Civitatis Vaticanae),—' * german: Vatikanstadt, cf. '—' (in Austria: ') * pl, Miasto Watykańskie, cf. '—' * pt, Cidade do Vati ...

. It is well known among modern-day Latinists as the place where documents of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

are written in or translated into

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

History

The

Secretariate of Briefs to Princes and of Latin Letters The Secretariate of Briefs to Princes and of Latin Letters, or simply the Secretariate of Briefs, was one of the offices of the Roman Curia abrogated in 1967 during Pope Paul VI's reform of the Pontifical court. It was divided into two sections. ...

, or in short ''Secretariate of Briefs'', was one of the so-called offices of the Roman Curia which were abolished in the 20th century. The secretary for Latin letters was a prelate or private chamberlain whose duties were to write the letters of less solemnity which the sovereign pontiff addresses to different personages. By the time of

Pope Paul VI's reform of the Roman Curia Pope Paul VI's reform of the Roman Curia was accomplished through a series of decrees beginning in 1964, principally through the apostolic constitution ''Regimini Ecclesiae universae'' issued on 15 August 1967. On 28 October 1965, the bishops at ...

, the office once known as Secretary for Briefs to Princes had been renamed more prosaically as the Latin Language Department of the First Section of the Secretariat of State. No longer headed by a Cardinal, it had lost some of its luster, but it remained the real communications hub at the Vatican.

21st century

Reginald Foster was an American Catholic priest and friar of the

Order of Discalced Carmelites The Discalced Carmelites, known officially as the Order of the Discalced Carmelites of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel ( la, Ordo Fratrum Carmelitarum Discalceatorum Beatae Mariae Virginis de Monte Carmelo) or the Order of Discalced Carme ...

, born in

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

, on 14 November 1939. A noted Latin expert, he worked in the Latin Letters Section of the Secretariat of State in the

Vatican Vatican may refer to: Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum The Holy See * The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...

. Foster became one of the

Pope The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...

's Latinists in the late 1960s. Today, the office's seven Latinists have a steady stream of work, and sometimes they fall behind. When

Pope Benedict XVI Pope Benedict XVI ( la, Benedictus XVI; it, Benedetto XVI; german: link=no, Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, , on 16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the Church and the sovereign ...

’s encyclical, ''

Caritas in veritate ''Caritas in veritate'' (English: "Charity in truth") is the third and last encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI, and his first social encyclical. It was signed on 29 June 2009 and was published on 7 July 2009. It was initially published in Italia ...

'', was published in July 2009, no Latin text was released, apparently for the first time. The translators were still working on the document, and the Latin version was published only at the end of August, only after it had been sent by DHL to Foster's sickbed for corrections.'Nulli secundus': Recovering U.S. Priest Leaves Hole in Latin OfficeArchived version
/ref>

References

Latin language Secretariat of State (Holy See) {{catholicism-stub