Or "My Summer With the Opus Dei."
The Philadelphia Latin and Greek Institute (PLGI) purports to be a summer school for the instruction of Latin. This is true, it is that. However, the secular academic who embraces the opportunity to learn ecclesiastical Latin in the posh environs of the "International Institute for Culture" (IIC) at Ivy Hall is in for something of a shock. Not least when they find out that the profoundly bland name conceals the fact that the IIC's primary mission is neo-conservative Catholic proselytizing and activism. With the occasional music concert.
What I know now that I didn't know then:
The chief instructor for the PLGI is affiliated with the Opus Dei (Dr. Gerald Malsbury is the translator of Opus Dei's materials into English). Most of the other instructors there when I was were also Opus Dei, with the exception of a genuinely wonderful, soulful man named Michael... who was Miles Jesu. Most of your fellow students are likely to be Opus Dei.
If, like me, you had no idea what the hell Opus Dei is, you will likely discover this fact not only by the insidious feeling that you are in some kind of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers sequel, but because you will become increasingly intrigued by those little books that seem to simultaneously always be momentarily visible and then hidden. You will wonder why such religious folk are carrying around books titled "The Way" (which seems to sort of suggest that there's some Way not covered in catechism, which in the case of the Opus Dei isn't quite wrong, but that's another story for another day). You will wonder why nobody will tell you about these omnipresent books even when you ask about them quite explicitly. And you will turn to Google. And then you will probably become kind of frightened. Because the Opus Dei, as it turns out, are the subject of rather a lot of conspiracy theory. The fact that members refuse to discuss their membership in it or anything about it does not alleviate the impulse to believe or generate said conspiracy theories.
If you do spend your summer with these charming Opus Dei folk, and I can guarantee you that they're basically good people with the usual ratio of exceptions to proofs in the mix, you will probably be happier about it if you're also Catholic. Because they're basically just X-treme! Wild N-tense! flavored Catholics. If you're not Catholic and you're female (like me) you're probably going to get pretty sick of the comments about your mannish clothing (if you like shorts and jeans), your short hair, your glasses, etc. What will really tip you over will be their perspective on female biology as a barrier to intellectual life (short version: your uterus made hormones that caused your brain to be small, so you can't understand theology. Sorry about that). At that point, if you're anything like me, you're going to demonstrate a few key features about fire and ice in the form of a verbal apocalypse. You will come to need to know the plural for apocalypse as the result of exposure to future expositions on subjects such as homosexuality, which they believe is a profound illness. Eventually you might give up on conducting regular sparring matches with the Opus Dei, but only if you're smarter than I was. Hint: be smarter than I was. Either a) don't go to PLGI, go instead to the summer programs at Notre Dame or University of Toronto or b) never fight in a land war in Asia. Just spend a nice summer teaching yourself, or find a retired Latin teacher. They will happily take your four thousand dollars and quite charitably not drive you barking mad into the bargain.
Other fun features of my summer at PLGI:
Exorcism. Witnessing an exorcistic ritual of the basement while munching on a bowl of Captain Crunch on a Saturday morning. The lads (mostly seminarians from various states and the nearby St. Charles Borromeo seminary) were certain that it was haunted, and did some extensive imploring of St. Benedict and splashing about of Holy Water to remove the malignant spirit from the laundry room. The prayers to Saint Benedict against demonic infestation became a regular morning feature of the PLGI when they found out that I was not just a medievalist, but that my specialization is in the history of the occult. I had a bunch of books with me because I was finishing up a draft of a textbook on the subject for my university's distance learning division and the course design for an undergraduate seminar on demonology. They were not consternated. They just put down some extra anti-demon praying. Like you might put out roach traps if you had a roommate who wasn't real diligent about his crackers.
Mild religious persecution: I asked to attend a Tridentine mass with the lads and was refused on the grounds of being a demon magnet, though they offered me the opportunity to be "the guest of honor at a barbecue" after. Hilarious! Say more things about burning people at the stake! Those jokes are almost as funny as the ones hillbillies tell about ropes and trees.
General religious fervor. Get ready for a constant barrage of prayer and invocations of various saints. You will never, ever forget that you're in an immersive religious environment. Since that isn't really emphasized in their promotional material or web site to a nearly unethical and negligent degree of omission, seriously: be prepared, if that's even possible. Four secular academics wandered into PLGI the same summer I did. Two left after a week (no refund of their $4k). One went stark raving insane - she started out a brilliant Vassar grad student and ended as an Opus Dei fem-bot who actually started obeying their exhortations (wearing only skirts, no glasses, hair up, very feminine, referred to arguing with men as "unbecoming") and participating in prayers. One of my fellow students practiced mortification of the flesh. I found it troubling to see the fresh bloodstains trickling through his t-shirts. These are people whose faith is the faith of blood, and the sword, and the flame. It made me acutely uncomfortable at times.
Immersion. The immersion is really great for your Latin - really, really great. There's no substitute for learning languages by immersion. But the ultraorthodox Catholic religious immersion has the potential to be extremely uncomfortable for anyone who doesn't share its values. You will hear Marcus Aurelius vilified as a heathen pagan who shouldn't be read at the risk of imperilling your soul by doing so - so you will skip those parts of Wheelock which involve pagan philosophy. Since a great deal of Wheelock involves Roman philosophy, this means you will end up using other texts. They will be religious and doctrinal: mostly prayers. You will learn many, many prayers in Latin. You will be asked to recite them aloud. If you're not religious they might just be texts to you: no big deal. If you're of another religious devotion, you will probably feel real uncomfortable having to repeat supplications to the Blessed Virgin Mary over and over again.
Rampant sexism. In addition to criticism of your person, biology, dress, and modern "feminist" character, there are directly education-related forms of sexism. First, there's a chance you will be one of perhaps two or three women (out of 20 or 30 students). Ultra-conservative Catholic women aren't encouraged to read Latin or Greek: why would they? They know they can't understand theology, so what would be the point? So perhaps there will be you, and perhaps one or two others like you. Then there will be all of the men who, believe it: are judging you for a hellbound whore. That might sound like fun. It's not. Also, you will read the pre-feminism, pre-PC 5th edition of Wheelock because it is "more correct" in its forms - if you are female, this means you will have to find some other way to find out how to speak correctly, because that edition of the textbook assumes that all students are male, and you will not be given options for learning to gender the language as you must when speaking reflexively. You may also find yourself understanding the world before feminism as you never could have before as you work your way through practice sentences written in the early 60s. It will be maddening. It will be educational. Try to keep your head on the grammar. The constant, low-frequency hum of sexism and at times, misogyny, will be hard. You are probably young. You probably have no idea what it's like to live among people whose certainty about your biologically determined and innate inferiority is as real and incontrovertible as their belief that God is in his heaven. You will feel like Virginia Woolf on some days. Remember that the world still exists outside of Ivy Hall, and the IIC/PLGI does not in any way have any real power in it. You are safe. Rinse anxiety, repeat mantra. You may need to do this several times a day.
Conservative religious activism. PLGI is housed in the same building as the National Catholic Center for Bioethics and some kind of center for liturgical reform (these people are wildly pro-life and are post-Vatican II schismatics) and you may occasionally come downstairs to get a cup of tea or a snack, only to find some Latin-liturgist and a pro-lifer are engaged in a heated round of The World Is Going To Actual Hell while they happily munch on your expensive wasabi cashews from Trader Joe's. Just, you know. Be prepared. Those same people will occasionally be wandering around the house at all hours. They may attempt to engage you in conversation. They may experience a mild infarction and make the sign of the cross at you if you think you're going to nick down to find something salty to go with the whiskey you've taken to keeping in your desk drawer for solitary night-drinking while you watch episodes of Deadwood on your laptop while in your nightie and you neglect to throw on some kind of wrap first.
Conclusion. These are people with Good Intentions. These are people who genuinely think that, for example, women and gays are lesser human beings than they are, but are sincerely not even a little homophobic or misogynistic. It's very strange to encounter that kind of bigotry without any emotional fire or hatred. It's just a fact: water wet, gays sick, women weak. You've probably never met anyone as pleasantly atavistic as this before. They believe in angels and demons and prayer and the pope. They believe in good and evil, right and wrong - and that anyone who knows of the existence of Catholicism but chooses not to be one is going to suffer eternal damnation in the fiery pits of Hell.
They're worth meeting. They're worth getting away from. It's worth knowing what you're getting into. Eight weeks can be an incredibly long time. Don't for a minute think that it will be fun to hang out with Opus Dei laypeople and seminarians for all the kitschy giggles and cool stories about exorcism and all the quaint rites and rituals and how they ran away and started praying in the street when you stopped to talk to a Taoist fortuneteller when you were all on your way through Chinatown for dim sum etc.
You will have war stories. But you will also have the scars that go with them. It will be grueling, exhausting, and deeply troubling. You will be outnumbered. That alone will do weird things to your brain. Right now you're thinking that it can't be that bad. You're possibly thinking that you could handle it. Right now it looks like a neat challenge. Right now you're curious.
Later on, you might feel differently.
However, your Latin or Greek - if you can manage to focus on it while you're in a place whose nature alone will inexorably drive you insane with the same disinterested intensity and focus of the Overlook Hotel as it did Jack Torrance - is going to be pretty damn good by the end. And maybe, just maybe... Maybe it will be worth it. Not many secular American academics can speak the Latin of the Vatican, or know exactly how to read liturgical psalmody, or intone from the Rituale Romanum. Not sure many really need to be able to do any of that, but you never know. Real life could be more interesting than you ever imagined. Those things might come in handy. Some day. | 
