Pope Benedict XVI

Have you ever wondered what the sonorous Latin phrases uttered when a new Pope is announced mean? I did. But on Tuesday, I caught an NPR broadcast that explained this. I have included a portion of it for your reference. I was told by a Classics professor, William Clark, at LSU, when I was there in the 1980s, that Latin during the Roman Republic and even Empire was not spoken as slowly and formally as the Church does today. Clark told me that Cicero had to have spoken with a rapidity and fluidity indicative of modern Italian. We know this because we know how long one certain of his speeches took to deliver. Most interesting.