RIP J.R.R. Tolkien - Remembering the 50th Anniversary of the Death of the Famous Faithful Catholic Author of the Lord of the Rings with a Requiem Mass

On September 2nd we remember the 50th anniversary of the death of J.R.R. Tolkien. In fact, the Birmingham Oratory celebrated a Requiem Mass for the Catholic author of the Lord of the Rings, in honor of his death on September 2, 1973.
 J.R.R. Tolkien was also a pious Catholic and had a deep relationship with the Birmingham Oratory in England.
The Tolkien family was welcomed into the Catholic Church in 1900. At the time, J.R.R. Tolkien’s mother became close to Fr. Francis Xavier Morgan, a priest at the Birmingham Oratory.

In 1903 Tolkien obtained a scholarship to King Edward’s, Birmingham, and in 1904, after his mother’s death, he was shunted between relatives until a lodging was found for him by an Oratorian priest, Father Francis Morgan, who was his legal guardian.
In Birmingham Tolkien had met Edith Bratt, with whom he fell in love; he also commenced his practice of daily Mass attendance at the Oratory, which he continued throughout his life.

Fr Morgan counselled him not to rush into marriage but, having been commissioned into the Lancashire Fusiliers, he feared that he might be killed. He and Edith, who was also received into the Catholic Church, married in 1916.

 In 1966, in the last decade of his life, he was one of those who worked on the translation that became the Jerusalem Bible.
In honor of this special connection, the Birmingham Oratory celebrated a Requiem Mass on September 2, 2023, which was the 50th anniversary of Tolkien’s death.
There has been discussion about a possible canonization for J.R.R. Tolkien, to declare him a Saint in the Catholic Church.

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