Free Republic

It’s a somewhat obscure apocalyptic novel, much overlooked since its publication in 1907, and yet it comes with a recommendation that just about any best-selling author would covet: the spiritual leader of the whole world says it’s a good read. And not just the current pope, the previous one too.Pope Francis raised eyebrows in 2013 and again in 2015 when he recommended Robert Hugh Benson’s Lord of the World to the faithful as a book that depicts a “globalization of hegemonic uniformity.” Similarly, then-Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, referred to the Universalism depicted in Lord of the...

The Lord of the World by Rev. James V. Schall, SJ    3/09/09   In 2001, St. Augustine's Press published a new edition of Robert Hugh Benson's 1907 novel, The Lord of the World. A friend of mine in Vermont recently urged me to read it, and I did.   Ralph McInerny, in a brief introduction, writes: "The novel wonderfully conveys the flatness and boredom of a world without God. Boredom becomes a condition for recognizing our need for something more than this -- a few more decades of life and then a total void."   This novel is...