Pope Leo XIV has issued his first papal encyclical since his elevation to the papacy a year ago this month, and fantasy fans may find a quote in the document surprisingly familiar. J.R.R. Tolkien is referenced in the encyclical; the quote does not come from his religious writings, but is in fact a passage from The Lord of the Rings.
The papal encyclical is a letter written to the Catholic Church’s bishops; it is typically an address on a particular topic, and is intended for worldwide distribution and consumption. The new encyclical, titled Magnifica Humanitas, or “Magnificent Humanity,” devotes much of its space to the question of artificial intelligence, which the Pope criticizes for its role in warfare and dehumanization; it also apologizes for the Catholic Church’s historical role in the slave trade. It also quotes a passage from Gandalf, as spoken in the third book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Return of the King:
It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.
The quote is apropos, as Tolkien was a devout lifelong Catholic, and described The Lord of the Rings as a “fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.”
The scores below reveal your true character. Your highest number is your match. Even a tie tells a story — the Fellowship was never made of simple people.
You carry something heavy — and you carry it alone, even when you don’t have to. You were not born for greatness, and that is precisely why greatness chose you. Your courage is not the roaring, sword-swinging kind; it is quiet, stubborn, and terrifying in its refusal to quit. The Ring weighs on you more than anyone can see, and still you walk toward the fire. That is not weakness. That is the rarest kind of strength there is.
You are, without question, the best of them. Not the most powerful, not the most celebrated — but the most essential. Your loyalty is not a trait; it is a force of nature. You would carry the person you love up the slopes of Mount Doom if it came to that, and we both know you’d do it without being asked. The world needs more people like you, and the world is lucky it has even one.
You were born to lead, and you have spent years running from it. The crown is yours by right, but you know better than anyone that right means nothing without the will and the worthiness to back it up. You are tempered by loss, shaped by long roads, and defined by a code of honour you hold to even when no one is watching. When you finally step forward, the world shifts. Because it was always waiting for you.
You have seen more than you let on, and you say less than you know — which is exactly as it should be. You are a catalyst: you do not fight the battles yourself, you ignite the people who can. Your wisdom comes not from books but from an age of watching what happens when it is ignored. You arrive precisely when you mean to, and your presence alone changes what is possible. A wizard is never late.
Graceful, perceptive, and almost preternaturally calm under pressure — you see things others miss and act before others react. You do not need to make a scene to be remarkable; your presence speaks for itself. You are loyal to those you choose to stand beside, and that choice is not made lightly. You have lived long enough to know that the most beautiful things in this world are also the most fragile, and that is why you fight to protect them.
You are loud, proud, and absolutely formidable — and beneath all of that is one of the most fiercely loyal hearts in Middle-earth. You don’t do anything by half measures. Your friendships are forged like iron, your grudges run as deep as mines, and your courage in battle is the kind that makes legends. You came into this fellowship suspicious of everyone and ended it willing to die for an elf. That is not a small thing. That is everything.
You think in centuries and act in absolutes. Order, dominion, control — not because you are cruel by nature, but because you have decided that the world left to itself always falls apart, and you are the only one with the vision and the will to hold it together. You were not always this. Something was lost, or taken, or betrayed, and the version of you that stands now is the answer to that wound. The tragedy is that you’re not entirely wrong — just entirely too far gone to course-correct.
You are a study in contradiction — pitiable and dangerous, cunning and broken, capable of both cruelty and something that once resembled love. You are defined by loss: of innocence, of self, of the one thing that gave your existence meaning. Two voices war inside you constantly, and the tragedy is that the better one sometimes wins, just not often enough, and never at the right moment. You are a warning, yes — but also a mirror. We are all a little Gollum, given the right ring and enough time.
Tolkien deliberately set the events of his fantasy works in the pre-Christian era of Middle-Earth. However, Christian themes can be found in the work, albeit not as blatantly as those found in the Chronicles of Narnia books, by Tolkien’s friend and colleague C.S. Lewis. There is no singular Christ-like figure akin to Lewis’ Aslan, but Gandalf himself is killed battling the Balrog, only to later emerge resurrected as Gandalf the White; other characters, including Frodo and Aragorn, undergo less literal “deaths” and are subsequently reborn in a metaphorical fashion. Other elements of Catholic doctrine, including a prohibition against suicide and the fall of man, are also present in the mythology of Middle-Earth.
The Chicago-born Leo is the most famous American Catholic in the world, but another notable Catholic will have a hand in a new Lord of the Rings film. Stephen Colbert, who has recently found himself in possession of a great deal of spare time, will pen Shadow of the Past, a new Middle-Earth adventure, alongside his son Peter and series veteran Philippa Boyens.
The* Lord of the Rings* films are streaming on HBO Max. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.
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