By Joseph Pearce, EWTN News - The key to understanding LOTR is to be found in the date on which the Ring is destroyed — March 25, the feast of the Annunciation... According to its author, J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings “is, of course, a fundamentally religious and Catholic work.” This might puzzle or mystify many people. There is, after all, no mention of Christ or his Church anywhere in its thousand or so pages.