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The Latin Letters Office is a department of the Roman Curia's Secretariat of State of the Holy See in Vatican City. It is well known among modern-day Latinists as the place where documents of the Catholic Church are written in or translated into Latin.
The Secretariate of Briefs to Princes and of Latin Letters, 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, 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.
Reginald Foster was an American Catholic priest and friar of the Order of Discalced Carmelites, born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on 14 November 1939. A noted Latin expert, he worked in the Latin Letters Section of the Secretariat of State in the Vatican. Foster became one of the Pope's Latinists in the late 1960s. [1]
Today, the office's seven Latinists have a steady stream of work, and sometimes they fall behind. When Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical, Caritas in veritate , 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 courier to Foster's sickbed for corrections. [2]
The Holy See, 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, which has ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the worldwide Catholic Church and sovereignty or governance over the city-state known as the Vatican City. As the supreme body of government of the Catholic Church, the Holy See enjoys the status of a sovereign juridical entity under international law.
The Roman Curia comprises the administrative institutions of the Holy See and the central body through which the affairs of the Roman Catholic Church are conducted. The Roman Curia is the institution which the Roman Pontiff ordinarily makes use of in the exercise of his supreme pastoral office and universal mission in the world. It is at the service of the Pope, successor of Peter, and of the Bishops, successors of the Apostles, according to the modalities that are proper to the nature of each one, fulfilling their function with an evangelical spirit, working for the good and at the service of communion, unity and edification of the Universal Church and attending to the demands of the world in which the Church is called to fulfill its mission.
The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) is a department of the Roman Curia in charge of the religious discipline of the Catholic Church. The Dicastery is the oldest among the departments of the Roman Curia. Its seat is the Palace of the Holy Office in Rome. It was founded to defend the Catholic Church from heresy and is the body responsible for promulgating and defending Catholic doctrine.
Ecclesiastical Latin, also called Church Latin or Liturgical Latin, is a form of Latin developed to discuss Christian thought in Late antiquity and used in Christian liturgy, theology, and church administration to the present day, especially in the Catholic Church. It includes words from Vulgar Latin and Classical Latin re-purposed with Christian meaning. It is less stylized and rigid in form than Classical Latin, sharing vocabulary, forms, and syntax, while at the same time incorporating informal elements which had always been with the language but which were excluded by the literary authors of Classical Latin.
Monsignor is a form of address or title for certain members of the clergy in the Catholic Church. Monsignor is the apocopic form of the Italian monsignore, meaning "my lord". "Monsignor" can be abbreviated as Mons. or Msgr. In some countries, the title "monsignor" is used as a form of address for bishops. However, in English-speaking countries, the title is unrelated to the episcopacy, though many priests with the title later become bishops.
Crescenzio Sepe is an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Naples from 2006 to 2020. He served in the Roman Curia as Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples from 2001 to 2006. He was made a cardinal in 2001. Before that he spent 25 years in increasingly important positions in the Roman Curia.
Reginald Thomas Foster was an American Catholic priest and friar of the Order of Discalced Carmelites. From 1970 until his retirement in 2009, he worked in the Latin Letters section of the Secretariat of State in the Vatican. He was an expert in Latin literature and an influential teacher of Latin, including 30 years at the Gregorian University, Teresianum, Urbanianum in Rome and free summer courses that continued when he retired to Milwaukee.
The Secretariat of State is the oldest dicastery in the Roman Curia, the central papal governing bureaucracy of the Catholic Church. It is headed by the Cardinal Secretary of State and performs all the political and diplomatic functions of the Holy See. The Secretariat is divided into three sections: the Section for General Affairs, the Section for Relations with States, and, since 2017, the Section for Diplomatic Staff.
The papal household or pontifical household, called until 1968 the Papal Court, consists of dignitaries who assist the pope in carrying out particular ceremonies of either a religious or a civil character.
A papal brief or breve is a formal document emanating from the pope.
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.
The Section for Relations with States or Second Section of the Secretariat of State is the body within the Roman Curia charged with dealing with matters that involve relations with civil governments. It has been part of the Vatican Secretariat of State since 1909.
Pastor bonus is an apostolic constitution promulgated by Pope John Paul II on 28 June 1988. It instituted a number of reforms in the process of running the central government of the Catholic Church.
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.
The history of the Roman Curia, the administrative apparatus responsible for managing the affairs of the Holy See and the Catholic Church, can be traced to the 11th century when informal methods of administration began to take on a more organized structure and eventually a bureaucratic form. The Curia has undergone a series of renewals and reforms, including a major overhaul following the loss of the Papal States, which fundamentally altered the range and nature of the Curia's responsibilities, removing many of an entirely secular nature.
The Holy See Press Office publishes the official news of the activities of the Pope and of the various departments of the Roman Curia. All speeches, messages, documents, as well as the statements issued by the Director, are published in their entirety.
Pontificalis Domus was a motu proprio document issued by Pope Paul VI on 28 March 1968, in the fifth year of his pontificate. It reorganized the Papal Household, which had been known until then as the Papal Court.
The Secretariat for the Economy is a dicastery of the Roman Curia with authority over all economic activities of the Holy See and the Vatican City State.
The Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life is a dicastery of the Roman Curia. Pope Francis announced its creation on 15 August 2016, effective 1 September 2016. It took over the functions and responsibilities of the Pontifical Council for the Laity and the Pontifical Council for the Family. It has responsibility "for the promotion of the life and apostolate of the lay faithful, for the pastoral care of the family and its mission according to God's plan and for the protection and support of human life."
Praedicate evangelium is an apostolic constitution reforming the Roman Curia and was published and promulgated on 19 March 2022 by Pope Francis; the document took effect on 5 June 2022.
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