[1] His work spanned subjects as diverse as literature, education, theology, apologetics, economics, environmental stewardship, sacred geometry, art, and culture.
As a teenager he fell in love with America through his exposure to comic books, their portrayal of the fight between good and evil, and the theme of hope.
Between Dulwich and university he went to America, earning money as a "mother's help", and stayed first with a family in New England before touring the continent by Greyhound bus.
He later explored Sufism and Buddhism, and began a correspondence with the philosopher Robert Bolton [Wikidata], author of numerous books on spirituality.
Caldecott came to realize that the stories which had informed his early youth, those of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, the Quest of the Holy Grail, C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, and J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings all reflected a Christian worldview.
In 2002, after the demise of Plater College, the Centre for Faith & Culture merged for several years with the G. K. Chesterton Institute, creating the "G. K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture", which was eventually based at Seton Hall University in New Jersey with its Oxford Centre in King Street, Oxford.
The Caldecotts, along with their eldest daughter Teresa, eventually founded their own company, Second Spring Oxford Ltd, in order to manage several editorial contracts as well as undertaking their own publishing programme.
Caldecott's blogs "Beauty in Education", "The Economy Project",[6] and "All Things Made New"[7] serve as resource collections on the topics of education, economics and social justice, and perennial wisdom, and served also as forums for a growing network of friends who, under the banner "Second Spring Associates", hoped to expand the reach of his Second Spring work internationally.
The work in this direction was temporarily suspended at his death, but in 2017 Leonie used her own funds to re-launch the website at second spring.co.uk, including an online version of the journal, Second Spring Current.
Caldecott's writing draws on the work of Catholic intellectuals including Hans Urs von Balthasar, Joseph Ratzinger, Pope John Paul II, Henri de Lubac, Luigi Giussani, G. K. Chesterton, John Henry Newman, and Jacques Maritain.
Caldecott's articles appeared in Oasis, the National Catholic Register, Touchstone, This Rock, Radical Orthodoxy Journal, The Chesterton Review, Communio and Parabola.
He organized conferences such as "Beyond the Prosaic" on the reform of the Liturgy and "Eternity in Time" on Christopher Dawson's contribution to the Catholic idea of history.
The Power of the Ring explores the spiritual, theological, and philosophical meaning of the work – Tolkien's faith, which was influenced by the Oratory of St Philip.
[15] Mike Foster, in Tolkien Studies, writes that "this self-described search for 'Tolkien's secret fire' finds it in the author's devout Catholicism".
[16] He finds Caldecott's blending of criticism and Catholicism problematic, as "the reader perforce has two subjects to weigh and balance: literary scholarship and theological interpretation".
Duriez remarks, too, on Caldecott's account of Tolkien's "veneration of Mary" and its impact on the Elf-lady Galadriel and "the angelic Elbereth".
When he was dying from prostate cancer in May 2014, he was too ill to see the latest Avengers movie, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, in the cinema and he was not expected to survive long enough for the Blu-ray release.
[23] Pierpaolo Finaldi, managing editor of the Catholic Truth Society, noted Caldecott's "encyclopaedic knowledge of the faith".