Tolkien and Catholicism

[rayne89]

Tolkien is very subtle. I’ve read the books and I think the movies are more obviously Catholic. But I saw the movies first.

That’s funny because I’ve read the books and seen the movies and to me the books are more obviously Catholic.

 

[rayne89]

Hitler was also a catholic.

Just joking monica!

Not all catholics who are involved in popular media are actually faithful to the faith.

Tom hanks was a catholic. I think… Rosie O Donnel is a catholic. Oops!

Clearly mariafransisca you’re not all that familiar with Tolkien. To compare Tom Hanks and Rosie O’Donnel to Tolkien. Tolkien was quite faithful to Catholicism and his works were not contrary to it.

 

[TommyWommy]

Listen to this audio by Peter Kreeft. Numbers 4, 28 & 29:

peterkreeft.com/audio.htm

Good, Catholic stuff on Tolkien!

 

[SammyJankis90]

The Two Towers:

They all gazed at him. His hair was white as snow in the sunshine; and gleaming white was his robe; the eyes under his deep brows were bright, piercing as the rays of the sun; power was in his hand. Between wonder, joy, and fear they stood and found no words to say. At last Aragorn stirred. ‘Gandalf!’ he said. ‘Beyond all hope you return to us in our need!’…‘Yes, you may still call me Gandalf,’ he said, and the voice was the voice of their old friend and guide… ‘Gandalf!’ he said. ‘But you are all in white!’ 'Yes, I am white now… Indeed I am Saruman, one might almost say, Saruman as he should have been. But come now, tell me of yourselves! I have passed through fire and deep water, since we parted.

I read that passage tonight, and I just had to put the book down there and thank God for the beauty and glory of the Resurrection as allegorized by Tolkien.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

 

[leekonghian]

For anyone interested in Tolkien and Catholism please read this thread:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=835724

 

[meteoric]

I’ve also never noticed before how powerful is the scene when the Company first enters Lorien. It fills one with such a longing for Heaven, such an anticipation of standing in the presence Reality Himself. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything in any novel that has inspired such an immediate spiritual response.

Well, not a spiritual response, (and it’s been probably 20 or 30 years ago) but when I read Asimov’s novelization of the movie Fantastic Voyage there’s a scene where the miniaturized submarine sails through the middle ear, and the ship is lit up with light from outside the body they are in. And I felt I was emotionally as affected as the characters.

As I said, not spiritual, but emotional.

Tom A.
“Have you ever been stuck in the Nautilus under the ice with air running out?” - The Never Ending Story

 

[empther]

From post 17

A couple of things as a HUGE Tolkien fan and amateur scholar of his books…

First, the overall theme of salvation coming from the most unlikely of places, of God using the weak and “foolish” things of this world to save us all…a small, innocent, unwise halfling bearing the weight of the world to it’s destruction in a fiery mountain, a poor carpenter’s son born in a stable in a backwater country under Roman domination.

In Empress Theresa, an ordinary girl rises up to become the most important person on Earth:

… I was a nobody from nowhere who rose up to do things on a global scale. It was said they’d remember me in a million years.