164. A Glimmer of Hope Through the Eyes of Death : Children of Húrin #3

It, as it turns out, you know, we will be discussing in our members section, uh, a recent, um, w- um, manner in which Tolkien made it into the news, international news.

Why don't we actually...

I think that's worthwhile for everybody to hear.

Okay.

So why don't we actually talk about that now? Let me bring up the article that we put on the website, which by the way, you'll also get if you get the Exploring Tolkien app.

You get all these articles in the app too, so, and you get alerts for it if you want to.

And you can...

Anyway, so just remember, guys.

Yep.

You don't, you don't have to be behind the eight ball on this here.

You can actually be on the forefront of all Tolkien news in the universe.

That's important.

That we think is good enough for you guys to hear.

Uh, okay.

So Pope Leo, he quotes Tolkien in the first papal encyclical.

I don't know what any of that means [laughs] because I'm not a Catholic, and Michael, I will rely on you.

Right.

So explain to me what he does.

One of us is a Catholic, so yep.

So, uh, papal encyclicals are just these documents that popes come out with every few years usually.

Um, they didn't used to be as common, but nowadays it's every few years a pope will come out with something that he thinks is important for the, the Catholic faithful and the people of the world, not just, just the Catholic Church.

Um, in this case, um, the, quite rapidly from a Catholic Church perspective, which is an organization that is thousands of years old, um, it, uh, he responded, he's responding to AI, which is a thing which has entered the public consciousness only in the last few years.

And, um, and so-It, it, it's a, uh, a whole Magnificat Humanitatis, um, is the name of the encyclical, and it's about artificial intelligence and a number of other things.

But for the, in the, in the, in a first, um, time ever, uh, that a fantasy author has made it into a formal, uh, document of the Catholic Church, Vatican document, um, he does indeed, uh, in paragraph 213, quote, um, Gandalf.

Um-