IN BRIEF

THIS MORNING, BENEDICT XVI RECEIVED PARTICIPANTS in the meeting of the Latinitas Foundation, which was founded by Paul VI in 1976. The foundation has the dual aim of promoting, on the one hand, the study of the Latin language, classical and Christian literature and medieval Latin, and on the other, the use and spread of Latin through the publication of books in that language. The foundation publishes a quarterly magazine "Latinatis" and every year celebrates the "Certamen Vaticanum," an international competition of Latin poetry and prose. The foundation has also published a dictionary, the "Lexicon recentis Latinitatis," containing more than 15,000 neologisms translated into Latin.

THE INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL COMMISSION is celebrating its annual plenary session from November 28 to December 2, at the Vatican's Domus Sanctae Marthae, under the presidency of Archbishop William Joseph Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. One of the subjects being considered is that of children who die without receiving Baptism, in the context of God's universal plan of salvation, the uniqueness of Christ's mediation and the sacramental nature of the Church. Attention will also be given to the identity of the nature and methods of theology as "scientia fidei" and to the foundations of natural moral law in keeping with the teaching of John Paul II's Encyclicals "Veritatis splendor" and "Fides et ratio."
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