Fr. Roderick of the Catholic Insider, Daily Breakfast, and a plethora of other projects has a new podcast out – Secrets of the Lord of the Rings.
In this first episode of the Secrets of the Lord of the Rings: presentation of the podcast; Middle Earth in books, movies and games; news: Children of Hurin, the world wide launch of Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar; a tour of Archet in Bree-land; fighting wolves, boars and brigands. Lord of the Rings: a catholic theological thriller?
…In the midst of the recent publication of Tolkien’s posthumous “Children of Hurin,” and the April launch of a worldwide online multiplayer game based on the world of Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings,” the new podcast is launched at an exciting moment for fans of Tolkien’s Middle Earth.
“People continue to be intrigued by these stories and want to know more about the events, the characters, and the mythology of the world that Tolkien created”, says Fr. Roderick Vonhögen, Catholic priest and host of the new podcast. “However, few people realize that the Lord of the Rings and other books by this great author are deeply rooted in Tolkien’s Catholic faith.”
Catholic perspective
Tolkien“In his works, Tolkien expresses fundamental themes like love and hate, selfishness and self-sacrifice, loyalty and betrayal, good and evil, and shows the Catholic perspective on these matters in a subtle and non-allegoric way. In this new podcast, I want to highlight these deeper layers of the mythology of Middle Earth.”
I received my copy of Children of Hurin the same day I received John C. Wright’s "Titans of Chaos" the conclusion to his excellent Orphans of Chaos series of which I am reading now. So maybe I’m not top of the echelon of Tolkien geeks for not reading Children of Hurin first, but hey it was a tough decision.
You can subscribe to the new podcast via this feed
Joseph Pearce who has written three books on Tolkien previously did a series of lectures at a Protestant seminary on the philosophy of the LOTR and of course Tolkien himself called LOTR “a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.” His lectures on this subject really were interesting as he maps out the philosophy Middle Earth
2 comments
Off topic, but check out the letter from ICEL which Fr Tim Finigan received on the new translation and copyright!
What a pleasure to hear this lecture by Joseph Pearce! He spoke once at my daughter’s college. His books about Tolkien, Lewis, and Chesterton are very good.