In a radio chat, the Carmelite Reginald Foster comments on the Pope’s first speech, which he translated into Latin for the Holy Father. He says the fact of the speech is no big sign of a shift to Latin: Pope John Paul II made his first speech in Latin also, as did his predecessor, and so on.
As for the style: “Most people say it’s very clear and simple, and runs along, and — depends on the inflection of his voice, I can hear his voice… If you pronounce it well, it’s — a dog could understand it!”
Interviewer: “Pope Benedict XVI: does he speak Latin with a German accent at all?”
“Oh, for sure…. oh, real — whaddaya say — real square and chunky, it’s chunky (laughs) well, that’s German, got it?”
Here’s audio from Vatican Radio, about seven minutes: MP3 (4.1MB). For Linux users, I recommend the Ogg Vorbis format (2.2MB).
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I love the announcer, who doesn’t seem to know much, and falls back on standard journalistic questions “What Latin do you like?”. I was playing this and my wife thought it was a Monty Python routine. “A dog could understand it!” “I don’t think so.” “I think so.” – “What parts of this are the most interesting?” “Well, I wroite it.”
“A dog could understand it!”
He’s also known for the quote, “Every prostitute and bum in Rome knew Latin.”