The benefits of studying Latin to better understand the roots of modern Romance languages and to help students organize their thinking are commonly cited as sufficient justification to include it in a classical program. Yet, these reasons alone cannot do justice to the unique role Latin plays in the history of the West as the premier language of philosophy, theology, literature, poetry, science, and diplomacy. For centuries, the most beautiful and profound works of the most creative and educated minds, from late antiquity through the Renaissance, were written in Latin. Even if many of these works were not still untranslated and inaccessible to contemporary readers, the promise of being able to read an author in his own language and in his very words opens students to an entire world that has been “lost in translation” for the last hundred years. For this reason, the goal of the Latin program at St. Jerome Institute is not merely to be able to translate works with the aid of a dictionary, but to be able to truly enjoy those of appropriate reading level, and so begin to reclaim our literary and academic heritage.

The Seminar in Latin is a four-year, intensive program in speaking, reading, and writing Latin. The first two years (Latin I and II) are devoted to conversational Latin and the last two years (Latin III and IV) are devoted to reading Latin texts and discussing them in Latin. In the Seminar in Latin, students read texts by Caesar, Cicero, Virgil, Symphosius, Prudentius, Augustine of Hippo, Bede the Venerable, Gregory of Tours, Dante Alighieri, Hildegard von Bingen, Anselm of Canterbury, Simon Dacus, Martin of Denmark, Alcuin of York, Boethius, Thomas Aquinas, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Jacques de Voragine, Isaac Newton, John Paul II, among others, as well as selections from the Vulgate Bible and the Roman Missal.