Tolkien and Catholicism Special

[SurlyMermaid]

Anyone catching this on EWTN? "Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings: A Catholic Worldview," presented by author Joseph Pearce.

Just catching last half hour and enjoying it!

[Aelred Minor]

I did not, but it's an intriguing title.

I dislike Tolkien's overuse of the hyphen (the ugliest of punctuation marks) and the way he made the Sun female and the Moon male, and obviously the racial descriptions don't meet with modern sensitivity standards, but in all I think the novel, and the corpus of Tolkien's literature in general, is excellent Catholic material. It seems to me that whatever his professed dislike of allegory the short story "Leaf by Niggle" is in some way indicative of Tolkien's ultimate hope for his works, that they may in some way help purify the reader's mind and bring them closer to God.

[Dale_M]

It will be broadcast again tomorrow, Sat. May 5th. But you might want to set your recorder: it will air at
5 AM Eastern / 2 AM Pacific.

Outside of North America, I am not sure when it will air. But apparently EWTN produced it last year, and it has been shown before. So my guess is that it will be available at a later date, too.

[John Carlton]

Why do you dislike the genderising of Sun and Moon? Tolkien was schooled in Anglo-Saxon lore and would have understood the feminine nature of the Sun. The word for Sun in German is still feminine.

[Luigi Daniele]

It's major drawback, IMHO, is that it is only 1 episode. Pretty tough to cram all of Tolkien into one episode. It was good for what it was, though.

[Splagchnizomai]

Originally Posted by Aelred Minor

I dislike Tolkien's overuse of the hyphen (the ugliest of punctuation marks)

Not all can be fond of kennings, hyphen-hater.

[PrayHarder]

I just can't seem to figure this out. I get the EWTN newsletter which says when shows like this will air. But when I look at my program guide, it's just standard programming like rosaries, masses, etc. I never see specials like this one on the guide. Perhaps I'm not searching correctly on AT&T U-Verse on the west coast.

[SurlyMermaid]

Originally Posted by PrayHarder

I just can't seem to figure this out. I get the EWTN newsletter which says when shows like this will air. But when I look at my program guide, it's just standard programming like rosaries, masses, etc. I never see specials like this one on the guide. Perhaps I'm not searching correctly on AT&T U-Verse on the west coast.

We have U-Verse and it just comes up "EWTN Presents."

[PrayHarder]

Originally Posted by SurlyMermaid

We have U-Verse and it just comes up "EWTN Presents."

Thanks for the tip. I'm usually not around when shows like this air so I record them. But "EWTN Presents" isn't the most descriptive name.