Pope Leo XIV dropped a Gandalf quote in his latest encyclical about artificial intelligence and Technology, and honestly, it’s kind of magnificent.
The encyclical is a massive 40,000-word document covering AI ethics, human dignity, and the role of emerging technologies in society. But among all that theological heavy lifting, there’s exactly one literary citation: a passage from The Return of the King where Gandalf delivers a speech about doing humble, faithful work in the fields we know rather than chasing grand visions across all the world’s tides.
It’s a lovely quote about small acts of fidelity as a bulwark against dehumanization. But here’s where it gets interesting.
Peter Thiel — the PayPal co-founder, venture capitalist, and current patron saint of the Silicon Valley right — has built a personal empire with Tolkien references. His AI company is called Palantir. His VC firm Valar Ventures. He’s got Mithril Capital, Rivendell One, and Lembas LLC. His protégé J.D. Vance once ran a VC firm called Narya. Palmer Luckey named his defense startup Anduril. And Thiel recently backed a digital bank called Erebor.
Anyone who’s spent time in Business circles knows Thiel’s Tolkien fixation is no secret. The Founders Fund was nicknamed “The Precious” as an internal joke. Business Insider reported all this way back in 2012.
But Thiel isn’t just a fan of fantasy novels. He’s been touring the world giving private lectures about the Antichrist — drawing on Revelation to argue that global unification under one world government is essentially the embodiment of evil. He specifically worries about a “woke American pope” making common cause with a “woke American president.” And he’s argued that AI regulation itself is a hallmark of this coming anti-Christ figure, quoting 1 Thessalonians to suggest that “peace and safetyism” is the impostor’s slogan.
In this frame, Pope Leo’s call to “disarm” AI and his warning against technological messianism looks less like abstract theology and more like a direct counter-narrative. The Pope isn’t just talking about AI. He’s pushing back against the notion that technology will save us — that we should tear down guardrails and let the techbros build their way to salvation, whether that’s colonizing Mars or building superintelligence.
There’s a certain irony here. Tolkien’s world is filled with great powers and consequential battles, but it’s the hobbits — the small, humble, often frightened “little people” — who actually save Middle-earth. Gollum, the wretched outcast, inadvertently destroys the Ring. Frodo and Sam barely make it to the finish line. The point of the story isn’t that grand technological or military power wins. It’s that quiet faithfulness in your own field matters more than world-striding ambition.
Maybe that’s exactly the message Pope Leo wanted Thiel and his circle to hear. Not a confrontation, but an offer: there’s another way to build. Not through unchained AI and space colonies and revolutionary disruption, but through the kind of small, stubborn love that happens in the fields you actually know.
Whether Thiel gets the hint is another question entirely. But it’s a clever bit of cultural jujitsu — using a shared reference to say something profound without ever having to say it directly.
