Saint Tolkien?
November 1, 2017 2:49 PM Subscribe
"On Saturday 2 September, a Traditional Low Mass was held at the Oxford Oratory to mark the anniversary of the death of world-renowned Catholic writer & philologist JRR Tolkien. The Mass was offered, however, not for the repose of Tolkien's soul – but rather praying for his Cause for Beatification to be opened."
- The Catholic Imagination of J. R. R. Tolkien
- How did J.R.R. Tolkien's Catholicism influence his writing? Part 1, Part 2
- J. R. R. Tolkien: Truth and Myth
- Cause for Tolkien (Facebook group)
- Cause for Tolkien (website)
Countless virgins have been saved from a life of carnal pleasures due to early puberty exposure to his works and the door to D&D being opened at exactly the right time in a young person life. A GREAT MIRACLE INDEED.
posted by Keith Talent at 2:57 PM on November 1, 2017 [41 favorites]
posted by Keith Talent at 2:57 PM on November 1, 2017 [41 favorites]
The Saint of Nerds
posted by The Great David S. Pumpkins at 2:59 PM on November 1, 2017
posted by The Great David S. Pumpkins at 2:59 PM on November 1, 2017
Think The Saint of Killers from Preacher, only it's Comic Book Guy by way an Oxford Don.
posted by The Great David S. Pumpkins at 3:03 PM on November 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by The Great David S. Pumpkins at 3:03 PM on November 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
He'd be horrified, surely? I mean not from lack of Catholicness but?
posted by runincircles at 3:12 PM on November 1, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by runincircles at 3:12 PM on November 1, 2017 [6 favorites]
I love how politic the letter by the Archbishop of Birmingham. It is the gentlest, kindest 'no there is no way we are going to do this' I've read in some time.
posted by crazy with stars at 3:12 PM on November 1, 2017 [16 favorites]
posted by crazy with stars at 3:12 PM on November 1, 2017 [16 favorites]
They’re going for beatification because sainthood requires two miracles. Sure he created the ring of power but that’s about it. He never even saw the holy virgin in a wafer of lembas.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 3:15 PM on November 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by ActingTheGoat at 3:15 PM on November 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
Now that is what I call fandom.
posted by ocschwar at 3:17 PM on November 1, 2017 [23 favorites]
posted by ocschwar at 3:17 PM on November 1, 2017 [23 favorites]
This does indeed sound like a cause for tokin'.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:18 PM on November 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:18 PM on November 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
I always thought he (and Lewis) had a Gnostic thing going, in their fiction at least.
posted by Segundus at 3:27 PM on November 1, 2017
posted by Segundus at 3:27 PM on November 1, 2017
I mean, I like Tolkien a lot, but this is beyond absurd.
posted by Chrysostom at 3:31 PM on November 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by Chrysostom at 3:31 PM on November 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
Saw this news earlier and remembered this paragraph from a recent article in the Guardian (my italics)
John Paul II had spent the last decade of his life increasingly crippled by Parkinson’s disease, and such energies as he had left were not spent on bureaucratic struggles. The curia, as the Vatican bureaucracy is known, grew more powerful, stagnant and corrupt. Very little action was taken against bishops who sheltered child-abusing priests. The Vatican bank was infamous for the services it offered to money-launderers. The process of making saints – something John Paul II had done at an unprecedented rate – had become an enormously expensive racket. (The Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi estimated the going rate for a canonisation at €500,000 per halo.) The finances of the Vatican itself were a horrendous mess. Francis himself referred to “a stream of corruption” in the curia.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:47 PM on November 1, 2017 [7 favorites]
John Paul II had spent the last decade of his life increasingly crippled by Parkinson’s disease, and such energies as he had left were not spent on bureaucratic struggles. The curia, as the Vatican bureaucracy is known, grew more powerful, stagnant and corrupt. Very little action was taken against bishops who sheltered child-abusing priests. The Vatican bank was infamous for the services it offered to money-launderers. The process of making saints – something John Paul II had done at an unprecedented rate – had become an enormously expensive racket. (The Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi estimated the going rate for a canonisation at €500,000 per halo.) The finances of the Vatican itself were a horrendous mess. Francis himself referred to “a stream of corruption” in the curia.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:47 PM on November 1, 2017 [7 favorites]
I can thank Tolkien for helping me find my way from Christianity to atheism, so I'm all for this. Saint indeed.
posted by potrzebie at 3:50 PM on November 1, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by potrzebie at 3:50 PM on November 1, 2017 [4 favorites]
Yeah, I liked the movies too but I wouldn't qualify it as a miracle, unless you're counting the fact that anyone actually finishes the Silmarillion.
posted by Query at 4:08 PM on November 1, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by Query at 4:08 PM on November 1, 2017 [5 favorites]
Query: the stories in The Silmarillion are Tolkien's best; it's just that it was published in a poorly edited form that spends forever on the backstory and not enough time on the good stuff.
posted by graymouser at 4:12 PM on November 1, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by graymouser at 4:12 PM on November 1, 2017 [6 favorites]
As for beatification – Tolkien took his Catholicism very seriously and would have been mortified to think that anyone is pressing a case for him as a saint. But one senses that he would have been (quietly and politely) mortified by most of what he set in motion, in literary and cultural terms.
posted by graymouser at 4:22 PM on November 1, 2017 [10 favorites]
posted by graymouser at 4:22 PM on November 1, 2017 [10 favorites]
Yeah, I liked the movies too but I wouldn't qualify it as a miracle, unless you're counting the fact that anyone actually finishes the Silmarillion.
My sister has actually read and finished the Silmarillion at least once. Too bad we're not Catholic or I'd offer her up for sainthood.
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:08 PM on November 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
My sister has actually read and finished the Silmarillion at least once. Too bad we're not Catholic or I'd offer her up for sainthood.
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:08 PM on November 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
I'm all for clarifying the total silliness of saint-making, so I'm for it. It's like winning a literary medal.
But while they're at it, there have to be a few other writers who should be saints. Chesterton? Waugh? They wrote some miraculous stuff. And if Hopkins isn't saint material, dump the whole saints business.
posted by pracowity at 5:32 PM on November 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
But while they're at it, there have to be a few other writers who should be saints. Chesterton? Waugh? They wrote some miraculous stuff. And if Hopkins isn't saint material, dump the whole saints business.
posted by pracowity at 5:32 PM on November 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
I mean, I like Tolkien a lot, but this is beyond absurd.
Beatification in general, or Tolkien's in particular?
posted by philip-random at 5:48 PM on November 1, 2017
Beatification in general, or Tolkien's in particular?
posted by philip-random at 5:48 PM on November 1, 2017
As a side note, he was one of the team of translators who worked on the Jerusalem Bible, which was retranslated from the original (i.e., not the King James) in the early 60s. I had a theology professor who said that Tolkien worked on the Psalms. That appears to be apocryphal but apparently he had in Jonah and in Job, as well as elsewhere unknown.
posted by janey47 at 5:48 PM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by janey47 at 5:48 PM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
well this ought to make his fans less insufferable (i guess that would be sufferable... are we still doing phrasing?)
posted by kokaku at 5:50 PM on November 1, 2017
posted by kokaku at 5:50 PM on November 1, 2017
Waugh is disqualified from sainthood because he stole candy from a baby. Not literally, it was bananas from his children, but the principle is the same.
posted by betweenthebars at 6:14 PM on November 1, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by betweenthebars at 6:14 PM on November 1, 2017 [5 favorites]
The Jerusalem Bible wouldn’t have been translated from the King James, which is a thoroughly Protestant Bible. The Jerusalem Bible in English is actually at least inspired by a French translation of the same name...some say translated from the original languages with a glance at the French, others say the exact opposite.
Tolkien’s principal contribution, per Wikipedia, was the book of Jonah.
posted by lhauser at 6:39 PM on November 1, 2017
Tolkien’s principal contribution, per Wikipedia, was the book of Jonah.
posted by lhauser at 6:39 PM on November 1, 2017
Too bad we're not Catholic or I'd offer her up for sainthood.
Don't let that stop you. A friend of mine and I consecrated each other as Episcopal Bishops back in high school, on the theory that if we did it at exactly the same time, each of us would simultaneously gain the authority to consecrate the other. And I have to say that was nowhere near the worst decision I've made. So I say go for it.
posted by Naberius at 6:53 PM on November 1, 2017 [10 favorites]
Don't let that stop you. A friend of mine and I consecrated each other as Episcopal Bishops back in high school, on the theory that if we did it at exactly the same time, each of us would simultaneously gain the authority to consecrate the other. And I have to say that was nowhere near the worst decision I've made. So I say go for it.
posted by Naberius at 6:53 PM on November 1, 2017 [10 favorites]
The Jerusalem Bible wouldn’t have been translated from the King James,
Agreed, just as I said.
posted by janey47 at 7:04 PM on November 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
Agreed, just as I said.
posted by janey47 at 7:04 PM on November 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
it's just that it was published in a poorly edited form that spends forever on the backstory and not enough time on the good stuff
Just like The Bible! Coincidence?!?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:15 PM on November 1, 2017 [8 favorites]
Just like The Bible! Coincidence?!?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:15 PM on November 1, 2017 [8 favorites]
"On Saturday 2 September, a Traditional Low Mass was held at the Oxford Oratory to mark the anniversary of the death of world-renowned Catholic writer & philologist JRR Tolkien. The Mass was offered, however, not for the repose of Tolkien's soul – but rather praying for his Cause for Beatification to be opened."
...and somewhere, quietly, Terry Brooks begins to draw up plans for an Orthodox High Mass at Cambridge to open his Quest for Prettification that one day will result in his elevation to Apostle.
posted by lazaruslong at 8:23 PM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
...and somewhere, quietly, Terry Brooks begins to draw up plans for an Orthodox High Mass at Cambridge to open his Quest for Prettification that one day will result in his elevation to Apostle.
posted by lazaruslong at 8:23 PM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
Waugh is disqualified from sainthood because he stole candy from a baby. Not literally, it was bananas from his children, but the principle is the same.
To make matters worse, in an ill-fated attempt to make up for "The Banana Incident," he went out and bought a bunch of bananas for his children the very next week. Due to their severe potassium deficiency he decided not to wake them but to instead send a simple email which they could peruse at their leisure.
Free bananas in the kitchen!!!"
posted by ActingTheGoat at 8:35 PM on November 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
To make matters worse, in an ill-fated attempt to make up for "The Banana Incident," he went out and bought a bunch of bananas for his children the very next week. Due to their severe potassium deficiency he decided not to wake them but to instead send a simple email which they could peruse at their leisure.
Free bananas in the kitchen!!!"
posted by ActingTheGoat at 8:35 PM on November 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
But while they're at it, there have to be a few other writers who should be saints. Chesterton? Waugh?
There are indeed people trying to have Chesterton canonized, for, I suppose, taking up his sword-pen against the evils of modernity.
posted by thelonius at 8:56 PM on November 1, 2017
There are indeed people trying to have Chesterton canonized, for, I suppose, taking up his sword-pen against the evils of modernity.
posted by thelonius at 8:56 PM on November 1, 2017
Free bananas in the kitchen!!!
YOU. SHALL. NOT. REPLY-ALL!!
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:47 PM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
YOU. SHALL. NOT. REPLY-ALL!!
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:47 PM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
I've seem some crazy-ass causes for beatification in my time but this one made me laugh out loud. Well, it was more of a snort of amusement. This is very silly.
I mean, he seems like he was a pretty nice dude generally, which is more than you can say for a lot of famous authors, but hardly cause for believing he's already in heaven.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:20 PM on November 1, 2017
I mean, he seems like he was a pretty nice dude generally, which is more than you can say for a lot of famous authors, but hardly cause for believing he's already in heaven.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:20 PM on November 1, 2017
I would also like to hereby nominate Stephen King for the Noble Peace Prize in Literature. Also Asimov should get a posthumous Grammy I think. Oh, wait, is that not what we're doing in here?
posted by RolandOfEld at 10:20 PM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by RolandOfEld at 10:20 PM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
Chesterton was a big antisemite, even in an era when antisemitism was pretty much acceptable. That wouldn't make him an atypical saint, unfortunately, but I hope standards are higher now.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:16 AM on November 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:16 AM on November 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
Traditional Low Mass
...does that mean these guys are the rightwing heretic batshit crazy branch of the Church? I thought mass was generally low these days but it's been a while since I was up in doctrine. What did he do that was so holy? 'By their works ye shall know them': that means like helping people and social justice and stuff. Beatification eh. I don't recognise these catholics.
My dad as a senior civil servant at a time of massive cultural and political change was in a group of peers whose prospects were radically different from what had gone before. Such a time is exciting, possibilities open up in front of everyone and generally people go on to fulfill their potential in a way that's not possible once everything has calmed down and solidified a bit. And since people know how far they've come, they have a justified healthy appreciation for their own achievements. They also get ambitious for new horizons.
So my dad never threw any bits of paper away. Going through them has been a marathon but I was really cheered up to find a letter from the widow of one of his peers. The guy had had an average career and made a great deal of it in terms of status and family connections, published a little book of essays and collected a minor traditional title. He'd looked after his wider family but no more than anybody else. He'd no more reputation as a religious person than your average church-goer. The lady was asking for my dad's help in getting the guy canonized.
The best thing about it was imagining my dad, a modest, laconic, sarcastic man, nearly bursting with the effort of not telling the grieving widow what he thought about that idea.
posted by glasseyes at 6:16 AM on November 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
...does that mean these guys are the rightwing heretic batshit crazy branch of the Church? I thought mass was generally low these days but it's been a while since I was up in doctrine. What did he do that was so holy? 'By their works ye shall know them': that means like helping people and social justice and stuff. Beatification eh. I don't recognise these catholics.
My dad as a senior civil servant at a time of massive cultural and political change was in a group of peers whose prospects were radically different from what had gone before. Such a time is exciting, possibilities open up in front of everyone and generally people go on to fulfill their potential in a way that's not possible once everything has calmed down and solidified a bit. And since people know how far they've come, they have a justified healthy appreciation for their own achievements. They also get ambitious for new horizons.
So my dad never threw any bits of paper away. Going through them has been a marathon but I was really cheered up to find a letter from the widow of one of his peers. The guy had had an average career and made a great deal of it in terms of status and family connections, published a little book of essays and collected a minor traditional title. He'd looked after his wider family but no more than anybody else. He'd no more reputation as a religious person than your average church-goer. The lady was asking for my dad's help in getting the guy canonized.
The best thing about it was imagining my dad, a modest, laconic, sarcastic man, nearly bursting with the effort of not telling the grieving widow what he thought about that idea.
posted by glasseyes at 6:16 AM on November 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
Chesterton? Waugh?
Graham Greene, surely.
posted by thivaia at 6:18 AM on November 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
Graham Greene, surely.
posted by thivaia at 6:18 AM on November 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
Leslie Charteris deserves to be a Saint first.
(Or Roger Moore, if you preferred the movies)
posted by Quindar Beep at 7:21 AM on November 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
(Or Roger Moore, if you preferred the movies)
posted by Quindar Beep at 7:21 AM on November 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
...Tolkien worked on the Psalms. That appears to be apocryphal....
No, the Book of Psalms is protocanonical. (silly joke, I know, but how often does one get to make a silly hermeneutics joke?)
posted by solotoro at 7:28 AM on November 2, 2017 [6 favorites]
No, the Book of Psalms is protocanonical. (silly joke, I know, but how often does one get to make a silly hermeneutics joke?)
posted by solotoro at 7:28 AM on November 2, 2017 [6 favorites]
> Agreed, just as I said.
This has gotten just beyond pedantic and I apologize for that, but the point is that it's strange to even mention the King James version in this context, as it's simply not germane to Roman Catholic texts. It would make more sense to contrast the Jerusalem Bible with a hypothetical retranslation from, e.g., the Vulgate.
posted by a mirror and an encyclopedia at 9:43 AM on November 2, 2017
This has gotten just beyond pedantic and I apologize for that, but the point is that it's strange to even mention the King James version in this context, as it's simply not germane to Roman Catholic texts. It would make more sense to contrast the Jerusalem Bible with a hypothetical retranslation from, e.g., the Vulgate.
posted by a mirror and an encyclopedia at 9:43 AM on November 2, 2017
...does that mean these guys are the rightwing heretic batshit crazy branch of the Church?
Not really. But the Oratory is an odd place: posh Cardinal Newman Catholics who inherited a Jesuit church. Very bells and smells, but more "so High Church Anglican it's Catholic" than "renegade Dan Brown clerics who plot in Church Latin." Only Catholic church I ever attended that offered up prayers to the queen, who I believe already has her own church to do that.
posted by holgate at 10:34 AM on November 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
Not really. But the Oratory is an odd place: posh Cardinal Newman Catholics who inherited a Jesuit church. Very bells and smells, but more "so High Church Anglican it's Catholic" than "renegade Dan Brown clerics who plot in Church Latin." Only Catholic church I ever attended that offered up prayers to the queen, who I believe already has her own church to do that.
posted by holgate at 10:34 AM on November 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
Catholic writers who should be canonized? Hello? Thomas Merton…???
posted by the sobsister at 10:40 AM on November 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by the sobsister at 10:40 AM on November 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
RolandofEld, you joke about Stephen King getting a Nobel Prize, but I wouldn’t sleep on it. In a decade or two, if we’re all still here, I think he will be at least as respectable as Bob Dylan.
posted by Countess Elena at 12:07 PM on November 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Countess Elena at 12:07 PM on November 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
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