Pope Leo XIV has turned to the literature of J.R.R. Tolkien to deliver a message that transcends the religious. By citing the well-known verse All that is gold does not glitter from *The Lord of the Rings*, the pontiff not only pays homage to the work but also warns against the deception of appearances. In a world saturated with superficial images, the phrase invites citizens to question what they see and to seek a deeper truth in faith and society.
Codes and algorithms: the ring's filter in the digital age 🖥️
The Pope's reference to the ability to discern what is authentic resonates in the technological realm. In software development, Tolkien's metaphor applies to debugging complex systems: code can look clean on the outside but hide deep errors in its logic. Programmers know that unit tests and code reviews are the equivalent of that Sauron's fire that reveals whether a ring is true or false. Transparency in development processes is not a luxury but a necessity to avoid catastrophic failures disguised as gold.
The Pope, Tolkien, and the meme that your phone lies to you 📱
Now it turns out that even the Vatican reminds us of what any internet user already knows: don't trust what shines in your feed. While the Pope quotes Tolkien, half the world swallows Instagram filters that turn a gray Monday into a red carpet. The irony is that the Church, an expert in symbolism, asks us to look beyond the gold, just as generative AI sells us castles of data. At least, if the One Ring were an algorithm, we would already know who would destroy it: a community manager with a bit of common sense.