** Click Read More and scroll down for pictures and video from our 2023 trip!**

Dear friend of St. Joseph College Seminary,

Last February I took three of our Delta Class seminarians to Poland for a week to attend the Winter Latin Workshop at Wroclaw University ('Scholae Hiemales Wratislavienses' in Latin). It provided an extraordinary “capstone experience” as they finished their work in the SJCS Latin Program. For one of the guys, it was his first trip outside the United States. For all of them, it was an extraordinary taste in real-time of what life was like for clerics through 1900 years of Catholic history, when churchmen of all nations could meet and get to know each other using Latin as their common language.

The Wroclaw workshop is conducted entirely in Latin, and is attended annually by scholars, clerics and students from all over Europe and beyond.

In addition to the Winter Workshop, we were also blessed last year with a short trip to Krakow, thanks to the generosity of a member of our Charlotte Lay Dominican community. We had the privilege of praying for all our seminary’s friends and supporters at the Sanctuary of St. Joseph, at the basilica of St. John Paul II, and at the Divine Mercy Shrine of St. Faustina.

I am eager to offer this same experience to our next class of seminarians who will be finishing their studies at SJCS this spring, and ask for your help in making the dream a reality. Three went last year. EIGHT are eligible this year, and I can’t wait to show them there's a world of active Latin fun, friendship and discovery outside the walls of my classroom!

Will you help us get there? Any donation will help. But here are some examples of what a gift can do –

Tax-deductible gifts can be made through this page and the Veterum Sapientia Institute, which is helping me organize this fundraiser. 100% of received funds will be distributed to St. Joseph College Seminary to support the seminarians' travel. Please use the donate button on this page; your gift will be processed by GoFundMe and deposited with VSI for payment to the seminary. Alternatively, paper checks can be written and mailed to Veterum Sapientia Institute, 5088 Abbington Way, Belmont, NC 28012, or to SJCS in care of Director of Development Fredrik Akerblom, whose contact information can be found here. ALL donations, either made through GoFundMe+VSI, or directly to SJCS, are fully tax-deductible. GoFundMe does not charge beneficiaries for its services.

Seminarians Ronan, Gabriel, John, Mateo, Carson, Matthew, Mark, Elijah and I will be honored to take your prayer requests to St. Joseph, St. John Paul II and St. Faustina.

May God reward your generosity!

Cordially yours in the the love of Our Infant King,

Nancy E. Llewellyn PhD

Latin Instructor, St. Joseph College Seminary

Belmont Abbey College

Veterum Sapientia Institute

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*expenses are airfare, travel insurance, ground transportation, food, lodging and conference registration.

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FAQ below, under the picture album.

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PICTURE AND VIDEO ALBUM OF OUR 2023 TRIP

CLT, February 2023. Aaaand we're off! Seminarians Connor, Patrick and Bailey give a final salute as they head down the jetway toward our plane. ("Valetote!" is Latin for "Bye, y'all!") We flew from Charlotte to Munich, and then changed planes for Wroclaw.

WROCLAW

We made it to Wroclaw! Elated finally to be at the conference, but a bit loopy after an overnight flight from Charlotte, a stopover in Munich, and jet lag.

Wroclaw, University campus, February 2023. In a workshop session of the work of 16th century Jesuit missionaries in imperial China, an instructor discusses a picture of "royal birds," including the mythological Phoenix, taken from one of the missionaries' accounts of Chinese traditional culture.

A few moments from a session on the Latin of the Roman Canon. The lecturer is Dr. Krzysztof Bekieszczuk, one of the Winter Workshop's principal organizers.

A Workshop session discusses an icon of the Resurrection (Greek "anastasis" as one participant refers to it).

Wroclaw, February 2023. First conference dinner. Lively table conversations and a lot of laughs are one of the best parts of the Winter Workshop.

Bailey used screenshots on his phone to give appreciative fellow conference-goers from Poland and France a brief introduction (in Latin, of course) to American Monster-Truck culture.

Wroclaw, main Market Square, February 2023. We encountered two Catholic street preachers while walking around downtown. They didn't have much English, and no Latin. We had barely five words of Polish, but somehow lots gesturing, goodwill and God's grace made it possible to communicate!

DAY-TRIP TO KRAKOW

The generosity of a friend of SJCS and member of the Charlotte Lay Dominicans gave us an unforgettable whirlwind tour of Krakow the day before we had to leave to return to the USA.

Wroclaw to Krakow, February 2023. Bailey was overjoyed at his first-ever train ride!

Patrick and Connor, however, were still feeling the jet lag.

Krakow, Dominican Church, February 2023. Connor and Bailey pray before the tomb of St. Hyacinth, first-generation Dominican missionary and personal friend of St. Dominic.

Our host and guide took us to Krakow's beautiful Sanctuary of St. Joseph to pay our respects.

We sang an impromptu rendition of SJCS's anthem "Salve Pater Salvatoris" in honor of St. Joseph. Thanks to the amazing acoustics, our voices filled the church!

Krakow, Sanctuary of Divine Mercy, February 2023. Bailey in prayer before the relics of St. Faustina.

First taste of Polish donuts! Fresh, hot 'paczki' on a cold day are as epic as Bailey's expression suggests.

Krakow, February 2023. Connor contemplates the altarpiece in St. Mary's Basilica.

Krakow, St. Mary's Basilica, February 2023. Our seminarians' cassocks got us into the sacristy for a quick look. Here, the walls give us some good advice: "Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you"!

Krakow, Basilica of Pope St. John Paul II, February 2023. Seminarians Patrick, Bailey and Connor look closely at Pope St. John Paul II's white cassock, still bloodstained from the 1981 attempt on his life in Rome.

Krakow, Basilica of St. John Paul II, February 2023. Connor touches a Rosary to a first-class relic of John Paul II displayed at his cenotaph in the basilica's undercroft. The grave slab is the original which sealed his grave in the grottoes under St. Peter's, before his relics were moved upstairs to the main basilica.

HEADING HOME

It was a whirlwind week in Poland, and absolutely unforgettable! Patrick, Connor, Bailey and I are SO GRATEFUL to everyone who helped us get there and back again! God bless you!

FAQ

Q: Why Poland?

A: There is no more powerful tool for language learning than immersion. But there isn't any "Latin land" to which I can take my seminarian students for immersion-learning experiences the way my Spanish-teacher colleagues can take students to Mexico, or French teachers to France. The closest we can get to that is attending immersion conferences like the Wroclaw workshop.

There does exist an international community of Latin-speakers. I've been part of it for over thirty years. My colleagues and I put on Latin immersion workshops from time to time in various places in Europe and even in the United States; however, in virtually all of these situations, the Latin happens in a sort of bubble, surrounded either by English or by some other language which the English-speaking mind finds easier to understand than Latin. So Latin-workshop participants have to make a daily, hourly, or even moment-by-moment conscious choice to use the harder language (Latin) and ignore the easier one (English, French, Spanish, etc.).

The beauty of going all the way to Poland is that English has not yet permeated Poland the way it has Western Europe. It's all but impossible for a native English-speaker who has no Polish to figure out what Polish words mean just by looking at them. On the ground, in Poland, outside the immediate environs of the workshop, our seminarians are surrounded by Polish everywhere. This turns the usual situation upside-down! All of a sudden, Latin is the EASY language, rather than the hard.

Q: Do you have permission from St. Joseph College Seminary to run this fundraiser?

A: Yes. This fundraiser is operating with the knowledge and approval of SJCS administration. It is not per se an initiative of St. Joseph College Seminary as an institution, but it is organized by seminary faculty for the benefit of seminarians.

Q: If I donate, will my contribution be tax-deductible?

A: Yes. You will receive a standard tax letter for preparation of your TY2024 tax returns.

Q: What is VSI?

A: VSI stands for Veterum Sapientia Institute. VSI is a 501(c)3 public benefit nonprofit incorporated in North Carolina to help Catholic clergy, religious and laity all over the world learn Latin and Greek. I am one of its founders and a member of its Board of Directors.

"Veterum Sapientia" as a phrase means "Wisdom of the Ancients." It is the title of a 1962 Apostolic Constitution of John XXIII, in which Pope John proposed a vigorous program of renewal for sacred language studies within the Church.

Q: Why are you using VSI to process donations?

A: It's because this campaign is not an initiative of the seminary as an institution, nor of the Diocese of Charlotte. It's the work of a seminary faculty member for the benefit of seminarians, supported by an organization whose corporate purpose is to help people (especially Catholic clergy) learn Latin.

Q: If the trip is cancelled, will my donation be refunded?

A: Yes, absolutely. It's very important to me that donating to this campaign be risk-free; all donations will be refunded in full if we have to cancel for any reason.

Q: Is there a website for the Wroclaw Workshop?

A: Yes, though the website's security certificate may be out of date. On my own computer, I get security notices when I log on, though I ignore them. I can attest personally that the workshop IS backed by a legitimate organization: specifically, the Polish Philological Society of the University of Wroclaw. If you want to try looking at it, the website is https://wratislavia.ptf.edu.pl.

Q: What will you do if you exceed your fundraising goal?

A: Any donations we received in excess of our $20,000 goal will, first, be held in reserve against any unforeseen or emergency expenses we may have on this year's trip; once we return, all remaining money will be used to establish a fund to support Latin-immersion travel by SJCS seminarians in the future.

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Thanks for reading!

Nancy E. Llewellyn PhD

Latin Instructor, St Joseph College Seminary

Associate Professor of Latin, Belmont Abbey College

Director, Veterum Sapientia Institute