Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson's dystopian science fiction book, ''Lord of the World'' published in 1907, centers on Antichrist's rule and the end of the world. Dale Ahlquist, Joseph Pearce, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis have all referred to it as prophetic. Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, a former High Church Anglican Vicar who converted to Catholicism in 1903, started writing Lord of the World two years later, sending the Church of England into shock. Robert Benson came from a very long line of Anglican ministers and was the youngest son of Edward White Benson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Mary Sidgwick Benson, a social hostess. It was widely thought that he would one day succeed his father as the most senior cleric in the Anglican Communion because he had also read the litany at his father's death in Canterbury Cathedral in 1896. Benson, however, was accepted into the Catholic Church on September 11, 1903, following a spiritual crisis detailed in his 1913 memoir Confessions of a Convert. The news that the son of the former Archbishop of Canterbury had converted to Catholicism was widely covered by the media, and the Anglican establishment was also shaken by the revelation.
Robert Hugh Benson was an English Catholic priest and author who lived from 18 November 1871 to 19 October 1914. He began his ministry as an Anglican priest before being welcomed and ordained in the Catholic Church in 1903. He also wrote a lot of fiction, including Come Rack! Come to Rope! and the well-known dystopian novel Lord of the World. His works include current fiction, children's stories, plays, apologetics, devotional writings, and historical, horror, and science fiction. In parallel with rising through the ranks to serve as a Chamberlain to Pope Pius X in 1911 and earning the title of Monsignor before passing away a few years later, he continued his writing career. Benson, the younger brother of E. F., A. C., and Margaret Benson, was the youngest child of Edward White Benson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and his wife, Mary. Robert Hugh Benson attended Eton College for his education before attending Trinity College in Cambridge from 1890 to 1893 to study classics and religion. Benson's father, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, gave him his ordination as a priest in the Church of England in 1895.
