The Latin Letters Office is a department of the

Roman Curia The Roman Curia () comprises the administrative institutions of the Holy See and the central body through which the affairs of the Catholic Church are conducted. The Roman Curia is the institution of which the Roman Pontiff ordinarily makes use ...

's Secretariat of State of the

Holy See The Holy See (, ; ), also called the See of Rome, the Petrine See or the Apostolic See, is the central governing body of the Catholic Church and Vatican City. It encompasses the office of the pope as the Bishops in the Catholic Church, bishop ...

Vatican City Vatican City, officially the Vatican City State (; ), is a Landlocked country, landlocked sovereign state and city-state; it is enclaved within Rome, the capital city of Italy and Bishop of Rome, seat of the Catholic Church. It became inde ...

. 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 List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

are written in or translated into

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

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 suppressed 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

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, 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 Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel () or the Order of Discalced Carmelites (; abbrev.: OCD; sometimes called in earlier times, ), is a Catholic mendican ...

, born in

Milwaukee Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...

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, 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: Geography * Vatican City, an independent city-state surrounded by Rome, Italy * Vatican Hill, in Rome, namesake of Vatican City * Ager Vaticanus, an alluvial plain in Rome * Vatican, an unincorporated community in the ...

. Foster became one of the

Pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

'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 BenedictXVI (born Joseph Alois Ratzinger; 16 April 1927 – 31 December 2022) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 19 April 2005 until his resignation on 28 February 2013. Benedict's election as p ...

’s encyclical ''

Caritas in veritate Caritas may refer to: * The Latin term for charity Charity may refer to: Common meanings * Charitable organization or charity, a non-profit organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being of persons * Charity (practi ...

'' 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 – after it had been sent by

DHL DHL (originally named after founders Dalsey, Hillblom and Lynn) is a multinational Import-Export Expert Company, founded in the United States and headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It provides courier, package delivery, and express mail service, ...

courier 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