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Pope Leo XIV’s Call To Stewardship Through Tolkien’s Vision

Pope Leo XIV’s Call To Stewardship Through Tolkien’s Vision

Last updated on: June 1, 2026 at 2:23 am by Henry Karlson

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Pope Leo XIV’s Call To Stewardship Through Tolkien’s Vision 2026-06-01T02:23:23-05:00 Henry Karlson

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Edgar Beltrán, The Pillar: Pope Leo XIV / Wikimedia Commons

Like many others, I was surprised to find that the most recent papal encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, quoted J.R.R. Tolkien, and not just Tolkien, but a character from his books, Gandalf. It is not something I normally would expect to be included in an encyclical, even if the content of the words are encouraging, because it comes from a work of fiction:

The twentieth-century Catholic author J.R.R. Tolkien, in the words of a protagonist in one of his novels, described our responsibility in this way: “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 civilization of love will not arise from a single or spectacular gesture, but from the sum total of small and steadfast acts of fidelity that serve as a bulwark against dehumanization. For this reason, it is worthwhile pausing to reflect on some aspects of how we, each in our own way, can cooperate in building the civilization of love.[1]

By quoting Tolkien in this fashion, Pope Leo XIV, is reminding us that we should not become tyrants controlling and manipulating all things. We are meant to be stewards of the earth, serving the earth and God out of love. Through that love, we should build up the society we live in, promoting freedom, human dignity, and the common good. Pope Leo XIV is greatly concerned by the way humanity can, and often does, undermine itself by the way it uses and abuses its technological advances. We often act like gods controlling and manipulating all things, but in doing so, we end up creating our own downfall. He is concerned that artificial intelligence, AI, is being created and employed as a tool of manipulation and control. It is not that the pope believes it should entirely be rejected; what he thinks is that it should be a tool that is used within limits. He calls us to act with wisdom, making sure our tools do not end up enslaving us by their use.

In his encyclical, Pope Leo XIV follows Tolkien and his general concerns with technology, concerns which Tolkien wrote about to his friends and family in his letters, even as he engaged them in his writings like The Lord of the Rings. He saw a connection with “black magic,” through the way “black magic” works by seeking to enslave or manipulate others while corrupting those who use it, with technology when it is being used for the same purpose, that is, for the sake of domination and control. Thus, while he might not always write about the use of technology, he explores various ways “magic” can be employed, some which is beneficial, and some which is dark and dangerous, representing the ways technology can also be used. We find positive examples of magic with the Elves who use it as a means of enchantment or enhancement, while his most famous example of “black magic” is Sauron and his ring, which he created to enhance his power, hoping by it to gain absolute control of the world. We are given another example of “black magic” and its corrupting influence with Saruman, the leader of the White Council of the Istari (wizards); he was sent to help the people of Middle Earth resist Sauron, but he slowly found himself believing the way to combat and overcome Sauron was to take control of the ring for himself and to use it, believing he would use it for the greater good (but in the end, it would only be a corrupted good, as any use of the ring and its domination would corrupt its user in that fashion). Saruman ultimately became the monster which he was sent to fight; he became another tyrant who thought the ends justified the means. We see the outcome of this, not only in the way Saruman develops his own orcs, Urakhai, who he uses to wage war against Rohan, but in the way, after his was defeated, he made his way to the Shire, the home of the hobbits, where he took control of it and destroyed the land through industrialization. It took the return of Frodo with his companions to the Shire to stop Saruman and bring healing back to the Shire (by aid of the gift Samwise received from Galadriel). Tolkien was afraid that those who were fighting the Nazis were slowly turning into the monsters they fought; he saw they embraced technology as a means of domination and control, just like the Nazis, and they would destroy the earth for the sake of victory. He said that it was as if Saruman took control of Sauron’s ring, gaining victory against Sauron, but at a great price:

What a world. In times of my own world, it is as if Saruman had got control, stolen the Ring, and managed to down Mordor – and then become a new Lord of a scorched earth. But the unexpected always happens. We still have a King.[2]

For Tolkien, the greatest example of this was the use of the atomic bomb:

The news today about ‘Atomic bombs’ is so horrifying one is stunned. The utter folly of these lunatic physicists to consent to do such work for war-purposes: calmly plotting the destruction of the world! Such explosives in men’s hands, while their moral and intellectual status is declining, is about as useful as giving out firearms to all inmates of a gaol and then saying that you hope ‘this will ensure peace’. But one good thing may arise out of it, I suppose, if the write-ups are not overheated: Japan ought to cave in. Well we’re in God’s hands. But He does not look kindly on Babel-builders.[3]

Tolkien, like the pope, did not like the way humanity uses technology, seeing that it tries to lift itself up, taking the place of God; when we do this, we cut ourselves off from our relationship with God, denying ourselves the grace we need to fully affirm our dignity and preserve and protect it from all harm. Without grace, humanity will eventually create its own downfall (similar to the way the Tower of Babel was presented in Scripture). Tolkien was especially worried about the way this was going on with the war effort of his day. Pope Leo XIV is similarly apprehensive about the way our abuse of technology affects the way war is waged. It has led him to continue with Popes Benedict XVI and Francis in questioning the applicability of the just war tradition, suggesting it is now outdated. He sees the way people embrace technology, the way they use it as a force to dominate others, leads people to think about war in the same way. The just war tradition is no longer being used for the cause of peace, preventing wars, but instead is being used to promote them, and so, the whole tradition and terminology behind it need to be revised so we consider the way of peace-making instead of war:

Thus, war is not only fought, but also culturally conditioned through simplistic narratives, a friend-or-foe mentality, disinformation and fear. When historical memory fades and the ethical principles that protect civilians and the most vulnerable are weakened, it becomes easier to justify violence as necessary, inevitable or even “sanitized.” It is in this context that humanity is slipping into a violent culture of power, where peace no longer appears as a responsibility to be taken on, but as a fragile interval between conflicts. Today, more than ever, without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense, it is important to reaffirm that the “just war” theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated.[4]

What Pope Leo XIV wrote here resonates with Tolkien. Tolkien was not a pacifist, but, as can be seen in a letter he wrote to his son, Christopher, he saw the way war corrupts those who engage it, turning people into tools for the war machine, a war machine with one goal, domination. He believed that those who served in war must resist this by promoting the “human consciousness”:

The more men think of human beings as machines that tick over when you turn certain handles, the more they’ll rely on that sort of rot. And the worse the less mechanical humans will suffer. People of your (and my) sort: are not quick, bright, and perky. Partly because we digest food, or excrete it, and don’t just take it in the mouth and vomit. Partly because we distrust quick, bright, standardized, mental processes anyway. But we are a bit slow. And speed in your service, where men are more nearly reduced to the serfs of machinery than in any other, do need to be made into bright quick ready slaves. Alas! that you of all folk should ever have landed yourself in the Urukhai. Like dooming a child, because of a juvenile interest in trains, to become a plate-layer for ever or a porter. But you would have it! And I expect you’d have found Orcdom anywhere. This is War. And it is the task of people like you to try and keep that in the human consciousness. At present they seem determined to perpetuate the squalor and servitude of War in Peace, so that Peace shall become like War shorn even of the last tattered rags of glory.[5]

It is sentiments such as these, which are found throughout Tolkien’s works, which ties Tolkien to Magnifica Humanitas. While some have noted that the pope’s inclusion of Tolkien in the encyclical might have had a secondary purpose, as a way to respond to those who use Tolkien’s writings in a way contrary to his own beliefs, such as Peter Thiel who constantly suggests Tolkien’s influence on his thoughts; Thiel’s use of technology has many concerned, as he seems to have no respect for humanity, no respect for the common good, the good which Pope Leo XIV said must be preserved (and the good which Tolkien, likewise, said must be promoted by soldiers who are waging war).

As for myself, as one who has studied Tolkien, and his ambivalent attitude towards technology because of the way he saw it can be abused (equating such abuse with black magic), not only was I somewhat surprised the pope referenced Tolkien, I was especially surprised as to what he quoted from Tolkien. I would have expected something from Tolkien’s letters. After all, in them, we find how much Tolkien, like the pope, was concerned with the way we use technology. He feared that we would repeat the mistake behind the creation of the Tower of Babel, and so, it would lead us to a similar kind of fall afterward. Tolkien explicitly connected the drive behind the building up of that tower with our development and use of the atomic bomb. While such sentiments of his were likely understood and being considered as the encyclical was being written, it seems the pope wanted to show us another side of Tolkien, a hopeful side, the side which exhorts us not to despair but to do what we can to make the world a better place. Tolkien, and the pope, wants us to realize that we can do good without abusing technology, using it to dominate and manipulate the world around us. Thinking about this, I believe this was a good choice on the pope’s part; it shows us that no matter how bad things have become, we can do something about it, and we do not have to follow the way of evil to do so. We can do good without trying to dominate and manipulate the world. And this, certainly, makes sure our understanding of Tolkien, and with it, our place in the world, is not one only of despair, but that there is also a hope we can have, a hope that our dignity can be protected, a hope that our freedom can be assured in the future. That is, we can hope that even if we cannot create utopia, we can make things better, and even if history shows us many examples of human frailty and many times humanity has succumbed to the way of evil, that history is a sequence of various falls from grace, those falls do not need to represent the final word of human history. After all, the final word is Christ himself, and as the word made flesh, he shows us that the final word is one of hope, not doom.

[1] Pope Leo XIV. Magnifica Humanitas. Vatican translation. ¶213.

[2] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Revised and Expanded Edition. Ed. Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien (Broadway, NY: William Morrow, 2023), 149 [Letter 91c to Christopher Tolkien].

[3] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 168 [Letter 102 to Christopher Tolkien].

[4] Pope Leo XIV. Magnifica Humanitas, ¶192.

[5] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 114 [Letter 66 to Christopher Tolkien].

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