Tolkien, Pope Leo XIV and the Call to Stewardship (Sem)

Course Summary

This three-week, asynchronous course explores the intersection of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth and Catholic Social Teaching (CST). We will use Kaitlyn Facista’s Into the Heart of Middle-earth as our guide through Tolkien’s moral landscape and Pope Leo XIV’s 2026 encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas (On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence), to ground our discussion.

Successful completion of this course earns 1.5 CEU's.

General Course Objectives

• Explore the CST principle of the Dignity of the Human Person by comparing Tolkien’s "small" heroes with the Magnifica Humanitas’s warnings against "optimizing" the human person.
• Consider the “Gandalf mandate” as a call to localized stewardship.
• Understand the Tolkien concept of being a sub-creator.

Course Materials

• Required Printed Book: Facista,Kaitlyn Into the Heart of Middle-earth: Exploring Faith and Fellowship in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings Ave Maria Press, 2026 ISBN: 1646803655; ISBN-13: 978-1646803651

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Course Structure and Highlights

• Week 1: Human Dignity and the "Little Way" of the Hobbit

  • Explore the CST principle of the Dignity of the Human Person by comparing Tolkien’s "small" heroes with the Magnifica Humanitas’s warnings against "optimizing" the human person.

• Week 2: The Stewardship of Our Time (The Gandalf Mandate)

  • Examine the CST principle of The Common Good and the virtue of Prudence through Gandalf’s definition of stewardship.

• Week 3: Sub-creators for “Our Time”
  • Understand the Tolkien concept of being a sub-creator

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