The Science and Political Worlds of Lord of the Earth
A Secular Look at the Science Fiction Technology and Politics of the Famous End Times Book
The Popes’ Favorite Science Fiction Novel and the World it Dreamt Of
When one ponders what popes might read, one usually thinks of prayer books, writings by the saints, and the Bible. That is in fact where most of their reading is from, but for the last three popes, a science fiction novel called Lord of the World has been on that list as well, and they have cited it in different circumstances.
In 1992, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) responded to President George H.W. Bush’s New World Order speech by comparing Bush’s post-Cold War plan to that of the evil character in Lord of the World. Ratzinger stated the author described “a similar unified civilization and its power to destroy the spirit. The anti-Christ is represented as the great carrier of peace in a similar new world order.”
In 2015, Pope Francis recommended Lord of the World to journalists, saying it was the best book to understand the dangers facing the Catholic Church and the world today.
In 2023, then Cardinal Robert Prevost (now Pope Leo XIV) declared Lord of the World had “a number of passages which give food for thought, in terms of the world we are living in.”
Spoiler Free Quick Overview
Lord of the World, written in 1907 by Catholic priest Robert Hugh Benson, is a dystopian end of the world tale. Set in an mechincalpunk early twenty-first century, charismatic American Senator Felsenburgh arrives in London and quickly secures peace between Europe and a large empire in Asia. Felsenburgh keeps winning the public’s love and quickly rises in power. Meanwhile, Father Percy Franklin starts off as a lowly priest but has his own rise to power as tension between Felsenburgh and the Catholic Church, the last organization outside Felsenburgh’s control, surges to a truly apocalyptic confrontation.
The Dream of the Technological Future of the Lord of the World
A fascinating element of the novel is how Robert Hugh Benson envisioned the future, being accurate in some regards while off in other areas.
The biggest standout is the Volar, which is described as a slender, fish-shaped winged vehicle that “slides” through the sky, glowing with lights, used for passenger travel and aerial bombings, and also seen during parades. The story features incidents of volars bombing and destroying cities, much like would come to pass during World War II.
Telephones with push buttons for autodialing are depicted as being widespread. Meanwhile, wireless telegraphy and electric placards are used to communicate news events from around the world, which made me think of smartphones and cable news television.
Synthetic food, like the artificial meat available in the real world, is common place. It is implied regular food is hard to obtain, whether from government mismanagement or by design is uncertain. There are echoes of this in our reality in certain policies that try to replace meat with highly processed items.
Boring under cities allows for fast car travel in the book. Elon Musk’s Boring Company, building high speed tunnels under Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Dubai, and elsewhere has shown this being a realistic thing, while not adopted en masse yet.
The book describes artificial sunlight used outdoors that, for all intents and purposes, matches the effects of actual sunlight. Nothing today compares to what Benson describes, and thus this is the most “zany” technology in the book.
The Nightmare of the Political Future of the Lord of the World
Being End of the World literature, the politics of Lord of the World reflects the priest’s idea of a world going to Hell.
Government pushing mass use of euthanasia. The government runs centers, with a mandatory waiting period, for people who wish to commit suicide via medical assistance in dying, which we know somewhat as MAID in Canada and Europe.
Europe is depicted as a confederation of socialist states about to be united via a parliament into a firmer union. In reality, social democracy defanged what Benson would consider the worst of socialism, though the rise of social democracy and the welfare state led cultural trends in the general direction the priest-author describes.
In the book, the United Kingdom itself fell to a Labour Party socialist regime in the early twentieth century. Unlike the moderating effect politics had on Labour in the real world, the book’s socialists get rid of the House of Lords and institute a republic.
The Anglican Church of England is disestablished by the government while also going through a period of extreme liberalization in the faith. “Ritualists” in the church - Anglo-Catholics - become disillusioned and join the Catholic Church. Though the real world Church of England is still the official church of the government, liberalization occurred in other ways to the point that several waves of Anglicans have joined the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church itself has gone through a rough time that differs from reality. While a papal state is reestablished like in the real world - this was before Vatican City became independent of Mussolini's Fascist Italty - the book’s pope institutes the death penalty for things like adultery and leaving the faith. Elsewhere, violent pogroms target Catholics both in the prologue and in the story itself. Benson used the contemporary treatment of Jews in Tsarist Russia and other historical examples of targeted killings of Catholics, such as during the French Revolution, as a model in the book that in the real world mirrored the early days of the Jewish Holocaust.
The book features religious radicals plotting a suicide bombing. The first religiously motivated suicide bombing in the real world took place in 1981 in Lebanon.
Summary
Lord of the World is a fascinating look at both what early 1900s English conservative Catholics feared about the future and a unique spin on “End of the World” literature. It has an open Catholic bias, so that may rub some readers the wrong way, but if you are looking for a more grounded Left Behind that doesn’t preach, I strongly recommend it.
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And here I thought Evangelicals had a monopoly on end times stories.