Last night I gave a talk on The Lord of the Rings at Christendom College in Virginia. Here’s my response to a very eloquent young man who remains skeptical about the Catholic dimension in Tolkien’s classic:

Regarding your skepticism, I can only reiterate that Tolkien insisted that “The Lord of the Rings is, of course, a fundamentally religious and Catholic work”. His words, not mine. He also specifically called LotR an allegory on several occasions. And, as I said last night, he considered the fact that “I am a Christian, which can be deduced from my stories, and in fact a Roman Catholic” as the most significant factor on the “scale of significance” connecting him, as author, to the work, above his “taste in languages” which was also important.

Regarding the example of Theoden that you cite, you will note, I hope, that I did not make this part of my presentation but only mentioned it in answer to a specific question, prefacing my answer with “I think”. In other words, there are some things that are obviously intended to signify the Catholic dimension, such as the introduction of March 25 and December 25 as signifiers, much as the Beowulf poet introduces numerical signifiers in the final part of the poem to connect the death of Beowulf with the Passion of Christ. Please be aware, however, that great writers often employ the double entendre or triple entendre to convey a multifaceted dimension to their work. It is, for instance, impossible to read Hopkins well without being attuned to this dimension. The more someone has a linguistic nous, the more he will have these double entendres at his fingertips. In other words, Theoden can mean one thing in Old English while still connecting to the Greek. Whether this was intended by Tolkien or is simply a fortunate “coincidence” is a matter of conjecture.

I discuss the above and much more in my next book, Frodo’s Journey (Saint Benedict Press), which I urge you to read. I’d be very interested in hearing your response with a view to deepening our conversation.