Culture

The Lord of the Rings is Catholic?
the author was – he was raised by a priest –
and his faith is central to his work
By Fr. David Hudgins | Photos from CNS

Although it is not widely known, J.R.R. Tolkien, author of the The Lord of the Rings, the books from which the blockbuster movies are based, was a convert to the faith and a devout Catholic throughout his life. His parents died while he was still young and he was subsequently raised by a priest.

He had a deep faith which influenced all aspects of his life. His spirituality centered on the Eucharist. He once wrote in a letter to his son, “I hold before you the one thing to love in life, the Blessed Sacrament.” Describing his Catholic faith Tolkien wrote, “I fell in love with the Blessed Sacrament from the beginning – and by the mercy of God never have fallen out again.” (See: Joseph Pearce, Tolkien: Man and Myth, p.199)

In a 1953 letter to Fr. Robert Murray, a Jesuit priest, Tolkien wrote, “The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. ... For the religious element is absorbed into the story and symbolism.” (TMM, 100)

The Ring as an
Anti-Sacrament

Obviously one of the central elements in The Lord of the Rings is the ring itself. The ring is sort of analogous to the effects of evil and sin. Dr. Thomas Howard points out how it’s a sort of anti-sacrament or sacramental travesty. Just as grace, God’s divine life, comes to us through the sacraments in our world, so slavery and evil come through the anti sacramental ring in Middle Earth.

The ring corrupts, enslaves, dehumanizes, unravels, and destroys. Like sin, the more one uses the ring the greater hold it has on you. To use the ring is to fade, to become invisible. Like evil, it sucks life away. It makes people unlike themselves. It makes Bilbo unlike Bilbo. It makes Frodo unlike Frodo. It destroys Boromir. It transforms the sublime beauty of Galadriel to a hideous terror. It made the hobbitish creature Smeagol into the beastly Gollum.

The Nature of Evil in
the Lord of the Rings

One Christian theme seen in The Lord of the Rings is the nature of evil. Through The Lord of the Rings we see that evil only signals a void; it has no being of its own. Evil ruins, bends, corrupts, negates and demeans that which is good. Evil is like a parasite; it cannot make anything of its own, but only twists something good that already exists. Thus orcs are false elves, and trolls are counterfeit ents. And so we read in The Return of the King, “The shadow that bred them can only mock, not make.” In the world of myth, all is visible. The creatures of Middle Earth are like “visible souls.” And there we see an incarnation of all aspects of evil.

Through The Lord of the Rings we learn that evil cannot appreciate the good. Lembas bread is “dust and ashes” to Gollum. Gollum has taste buds unfit for joy. This is similar to how the joys of paradise would be horrors to those in hell. Ego-centrists would hate the heavenly city of God. Likewise, evil cannot understand the good. The lecher cannot understand purity. The self-indulgent cannot understand self-renunciation. Thus, Sauron cannot conceive that anyone would destroy the ring of power. This is the fundamental hope of the quest. Evil is blind to goodness. Sauron cannot fathom what simple Sam can see. Evil is inane; it gives up the good of the intellect.

Self-Sacrifice
in the Lord of the Rings

We also see Christ’s teaching that there is “no greater love than to lay down one’s life for a friend” boldly told in The Lord of the Rings. Notable examples of self-sacrificing characters include Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, Gandalf and even Boromir who died defending Merry and Pippin, shortly after his repentance. Frodo and Sam sacrifice themselves to save the Shire. Frodo and Sam give up the Shire in order to save it. Indeed, all the protagonists embrace suffering as a requirement of “working out their salvation.” (cf. Phil 2:12)

The Nature of Goodness
in the Lord of the Rings

Finally, we also discover something about the nature of goodness in The Lord of the Rings. Angels know God’s majesty and goodness directly, without any mediation. As Catholics, we come to know God’s goodness through the Liturgy. It addresses our imaginations. It puts a face on the abstraction of good. God has made us in totality, with bodies. Thus, it is good for the soul if the knees are on the floor. It gives a physical manifestation of our soul’s disposition.

We can come to understand goodness through Aristotle’s Ethics, but we can appreciate goodness and be attracted to it in another way by looking at Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas or Treebeard. For example, Sam displays the good of simple faithfulness while Gandalf, like God in a way, manifests the dangerous good. Gandalf reveals the “terrible” good – with majesty, power and mystery disclosed in his goodness. Gandalf is good, but not safe.

It takes Tolkien’s use of myth to convey these themes and illustrate these points. What we have in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is a Christian myth for our times, which points to Truth Himself.

Originally Published: September 2003