Okay I probably should have phrased the question differently. For the high level members of the Holy See (the Cardinals and such) what language do they use? Does the language they use for debating formal church documents differ from the one used in casual conversation? If new Cardinals don’t know the language, do they undergo “crash courses” or just use translators?
Who says the Vatican gets a fee from the ATM?
installLSC, I understand that it’s italian a lot of the time and other languages if it happens to be more convenient or precise for the specific group of people. That’s based on descriptions from one of the guys who wrote the last Catechism.
I’m sure you’re right – as I said, it’s been a long time since I was there.
I went to the Vatican about a month ago, and while I didn’t notice the ATMs there, every one of the dozen ATMs (and other screen-possessed vending machines) I used in Europe had a starting screen with a bunch of flags and languages to pick the operating language. I don’t think you’ll learn much by looking at ATM screens.
The Vatican also has it’s own pharmacy. It often has medicines months to years before Italian pharmacies because it can bypass the Italian drug approval process. It’s also tax free and fills foreign prescriptions again unlike it’s Italian counterparts. You just can’t buy stuff like birth-control pill, morning-after pills, or Viagra.
They use whatever language is convenient, given the people involved in the discussion. Italian is the language most often chosen, given that a large proportion of those working at the Vatican are Italian, or are expats who live in Italy and have had occasion to acquire some competence in the language.
As an indicator, lectures at the various pontifical universities used to be given in Latin, but are now given in Italian.
Without a date for the change, that statement doesn’t really mean much: the same could be said of the various Italian universities and public institutions. I would assume the Latin > Italian shift in Bologna was several centuries before the shift in the Vatican.
I would’ve been able to navigate a Latin ATM screen, as I had my debit card, and also know Latin.
That being said, I couldn’t find an ATM at the Vatican. My sources had told me it was by the post office. I found two separate post offices (both the one by the exit and a smaller, less-well-appointed one that was tucked away on the other side of St. Peter’s), but couldn’t find an ATM So I manned up and I asked a clerk there. She very nicely informed me that there was an ATM (“cash machine”) in the Vatican, but that it was not for public use, and there was just the one. There were also Swiss guards not letting me poke around in specific areas (such as, for instance, the one that I figured the ATM was most likely to be in after she told me that).
I asked the clerk if the ATM was in Latin. She said she’d never used it, but that she didn’t think it was. She said there were many ATMs just outside the Vatican, which was most definitely true.
So, unless other people are sneaker than I am, I suspect that all this talk about the ATMs being in Latin is likely wishful thinking.