(ZENIT News / London, 02.03.2025).- British writer and philologist John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, author of “The Hobbit” and of “The Lord of The Rings,” is in the process of Beatification.
Tolkien was a devout Catholic. For maintaining their faith even in the face of opposition from their paternal family, their family financial aid was withdrawn when his father died. Ronald felt that his mother was a true martyr of the faith for her firmness in the face of difficulties, reinforcing his beliefs. She attended Mass daily with deep devotion to the Eucharist and the Virgin Mary. Her oldest son, John, was ordained a priest.
In several letters, Tolkien stressed the power of the Eucharist to strengthen the faith. In a 1941 letter to his son Michael, he described the Most Holy Sacrament as a source of “delight, glory, honour, fidelity and the true path of all love on earth,” a passage quoted by Pope Francis in his Christmas Mass homily in 2023.
After getting engaged in 1913, his girlfriend Edith converted to Catholicism and they married on March 22, 1916. They had four children. Tolkien was born in the Orange Free State, today part of South Africa, and translated the Ave Maria and the «Sub Tuum Praesidium» into Quenya, an artificial language of Arda that he placed in the fictitious universe created for the narration of his novel. He was inspired by the Virgin to create the figure of Galadriel, a character from «The Lord of the Rings.”
Tolkien’s novels were popular: “The Hobbit” was published in 1937, and was written originally for his children. “The Lord of the Rings,” subdivided in three volumes, was published between 1954 and 1955. In 1953 he wrote Jesuit Father Robert Murray, commenting that this narration was “an intrinsically Catholic work.”
Several groups have promoted Tolkien’s Beatification. In 2015, Father Daniele Ercoli of Turin, and English Catholic Associations asked Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham to begin the author’s process of Canonization.
Archbishop Longley expressed his gratitude for the efforts of the Tolkien Society and delegated the promotion of the Cause of Beatification to Father Julian Booth. The Cause continues open.
