Finally A Book On The Catholic Theology of Harry Potter

Over the years I’ve read many books about the Catholic Theology of books by JRR Tolkien like, Tolkien: Man and Myth and Bilbo's Journey: Discovering the Hidden Meaning in The Hobbit  by Joseph Pearce, or The Power of the Ring: The Spiritual Vision of the Lord of the Rings by Stratford Caldecott for example. But none about JK Rowling.....so far. On the following pages you will find all of the truly amazing Catholic theology I’ve discovered in the Harry Potter books.

Don't Read Dale Ahlquist, Says Dale Ahlquist!

"I am sometimes asked if I ever read anything besides GK Chesterton. The answer, unfortunately, is yes. I wish I had a better answer--- something more along the lines of no." Dale Ahlquist, in the Introduction to The Complete Thinker, The Marvellous Mind of GK Chesterton.

So if we should only read GKC, then we should not read Dale Ahlquist‎. But as my long suffering Wife got me the book for my Birthday, it would have seemed ungrateful not to read it. Also I don't just read GKC, there's Belloc, Tolkien, Pearce, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Belloc, Cecil (GKC's brother) etc.

So, unless you're only going to read GK Chesterton, ignore Mr Ahlquist's advice and read his book.

Tolkien's The Lord of The Rings; A Catholic Worldview?

Tolkien's The Lord of The Rings; A Catholic Worldview. In this 1 hour long programme, Joseph Pearce uncovers the Catholicism found in JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. On sky 589 or www.ewtn.co.uk Wednesday 18th April 8am or Thursday 19th April 9.30pm.

'Hilaire Belloc' Is A Bold Catholic Statement

As I 'blame' Belloc for converting me to the Catholic Faith, I was very pleased to find that this long dead Catholic writer has his own blog. And then I was even happier to find the following review there last week, as only a couple of weeks ago I had to take down my copy of this book to look something up. I have always (sorry Treebeard) thought that if HB or GKC were to sign a blank sheet of paper that would be a striking Defence of The Faith! If you only ever read one Biography of HB, let it be this;

Joe Pearce published his biography of Belloc some years ago now. I have just come across, again, Stuart Milson's nice little review:

Old Thunder A Life of Hilaire Belloc: Joseph Pearce
(Harper Collins, London 2002, hb, 318 pages, £20) Reviewed by: Stuart Milson

Joseph Pearce has emerged as one of Britain's most prolific biographers of leading twentieth century writers. A self-confessed 'angry young man' in his early days, Pearce has made a journey from idealistic political involvement to the world of serious literature, and has worked hard to establish (what is now) a considerable reputation as a writer. He first gained attention back in 1996 for his substantial biography of G K Chesterton, and has produced books on Tolkien and the Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Yet Pearce, a Roman Catholic convert, does not merely seek to provide a conventional biographical study of his subjects. Instead, a special thread and emphasis emerges in his work - that of an individual writer's adherence to faith and spirituality in an era where materialism and the self have all but replaced organised religion.

Pearce's latest foray is a life of the Catholic writer, poet, one-time Liberal MP, traveller, romantic, debator, World War 1 British propagandist, epicurean and beer-drinking Sussex loyalist, Hilaire Belloc. Yet Belloc was born in the village of La Celle Saint Cloud, near Paris, on 27 July 1870. And although his name is synonymous with the county of Sussex, with that of his friend G K Chesterton and with a mystical English ruralism, Belloc emerges as a truly international figure - a sort of cross-Channel, Anglo-Gallic prophet of a noble Europe of faith, based on the principles of Catholicism and a near-medieval obedience to God. Indeed, one clergyman was startled to hear Belloc (the apparent embodiment of Cobbett or John Bull) delivering an oration to a London Eucharistic Congress in fluent French!

If Belloc was difficult to pin down, he was also one of those people who seemed to fill every moment of his life with activity. If he was not travelling by foot across the American or European continents, he was always speaking in debates, or writing for newspapers and journals, or throwing himself into this or that cause as if the whole world depended upon it. After the death of G K Chesterton, Belloc (his own powers at their lowest ebb) took on the task of running his old friend's magazine, G K's Weekly. He did this, not for money or glory, but to honour the man who had always been at his side. Belloc, anxious for copy, wrote to his son, Peter: 'Send us short stuff ... under whatever pen name you use. We pay nothing: I get nothing: we are all in the soup: but it's great fun'.

Names such as George Bernard Shaw and H G Wells also figure prominently in Pearce's story, and Belloc is often to be found locked in debate with those two exponents of socialism and scientific rationalism. In the following passage, the biographer's interest in the importance of faith (and Belloc's importance as a writer who expounded it) is clear: 'The whole of Wells's vision of history was anathema to Belloc. He objected to his tacitly anti-Christian stance ... Wells believed that human "progress" was blind and beneficial; unshakable, unstoppable and utterly inexorable. History was the product of invisible and immutable evolutionary forces that were coming to fruition in the twentieth century." Yet Wells ended his life in deep disillusionment, with Belloc - the opponent of all that the twentieth century came to stand for - pursuing him to the last. Science had not ended war, poverty or 'irrationalism', and the cold light of a laboratory could not satisfy the needs of the human soul. At the end, notes Pearce, Wells was defeated, not by Belloc, but by the intervention of reality. Unlike the socialist writer, Hilaire rejected the fanaticism of grand, man-made schemes, denouncing both rapacious capitalism and the mechanical, anonymous, ants' nest of communism.

For Belloc, the key to life was to be found in a small French church, or with his beloved wife Elodie and their children, or in a pint of ale brewed by county men and drunk with reverence in a hallowed inn deep in the Sussex countryside. As Belloc himself put it in the following 'touching couplet': 'French is my heart and loyal and sincere / Is, and shall be, my love of British beer'.

A heady brew, Joseph Pearce's detailed and engrossing biography brings Belloc very much to life again - a worthwhile thing in an age where not thinking too much (except about money) is increasingly the rule.

Ronald Reagan's Words Of Wisdom On Bilbo & Frodo's Birthday

"I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born."
Ronald Reagan
New York Times, 22 September 1980

I think that what alot of people miss about these important words are the date on which they were reported. Bilbo and Frodo Baggins Birthday! The role of Hobbits in ending abortion is quite clear!

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY lads HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Tolkien's The Lord of The Rings; A Catholic Worldview

Tolkien's The Lord of The Rings; A Catholic Worldview. 1 hour long programme, on sky 589 or www.ewtn.co.uk Wednesday 6th April 8am or Thursday 7th April 8pm.

Happy Birthday Strider

'He is Aragorn son of Arathorn,' said Elrond; 'and he is descended through many fathers from Isildur Elendil's son of Minas Ithil.' (The Council of Elrond; The Lord of the Rings) A film about his parents can be seen online.

In the year 2931 of the Third Age of Middle Earth, Aragorn son of Arathorn II was born on March 1st. (Appendix B; The Lord of the Rings)

So there you have it Aragorn is as good as Welsh in the eyes of Tolkien! Very little is written about Aragorn's search for Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, but there is a film of it online.

Oh yes, and HAPPY SAINT DAVID'S DAY to you all. A National Saint who is from the country of which he is the patron, what ever next?

Looking For The King, An Inklings Novel

I have just finished reading this great Catholic novel, which my wonderful Wife gave me for Christmas. Strange that a review copy did not show up in the post, but there we go. It is a great book for many reasons, but the great thing about it for me is that you could give a copy to anyone who likes Tolkien, Lewis etc. My Dad is unlikely to read a book by Scott Hahn or the like, but this one may go down quite well, and expose him to some Good Old Time Religion. Below is the blurb from the publishers (yes the ones that did not send me a review copy) Ignatius Press & you will also find a book trailer video on their website.

"It is 1940, and American Tom McCord, a 23-year-old aspiring doctoral candidate, is in England researching the historical evidence for the legendary King Arthur. There he meets perky and intuitive Laura Hartman, a fellow American staying with her aunt in Oxford, and the two of them team up for an even more ambitious and dangerous quest.

Aided by the Inklings-that illustrious circle of scholars and writers made famous by its two most prolific members, C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien-Tom and Laura begin to suspect that the fabled Spear of Destiny, the lance that pierced the side of Christ on the cross, is hidden somewhere in England.

Tom discovers that Laura has been having mysterious dreams, which seem to be related to the subject of his research, and, though doubtful of her visions, he hires her as an assistant. Heeding the insights and advice of the Inklings, while becoming aware of being shadowed by powerful and secretive foes who would claim the spear as their own, Tom and Laura end up on a thrilling treasure hunt that crisscrosses the English countryside and leads beyond a search for the elusive relics of Camelot into the depths of the human heart and soul.

Weaving his fast-paced narrative with conversation based on the works of the Inklings, author David Downing offers a vivid portrait of Oxford and draws a welcome glimpse into the personalities and ideas of Lewis and Tolkien, while never losing sight of his action-packed adventure story and its two very appealing main characters."

The Wisdom Of Tolkien, Again

'Why? Why do the fools fly?' said Denethor. 'Better to burn sooner than late, for burn we must. Go back to your bonfire! And I? I will go now to my pyre. To my pyre! No tomb for Denethor and Faramir. No tomb! No long slow sleep of death embalmed. We will burn like the heathen kings before ever a ship sailed from the West. The West has failed. Go back and burn!'

(The Siege of Gondor, The Return of the King, JRR Tolkien)

With these few words, JRR Tolkien clearly shows us the folly of suicide, euthanasia and cremation all in one go! If it is not clear to you, then please read the whole of The Lord of the Rings (again I hope). Remember that while the Church may allow cremation, it does not recommend it! This old pagan ritual came back into practice in the early 1900's for those who did not want a Christian Burial.