By Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture - Since the last three popes have all recommended Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson’s 1907 apocalyptic novel Lord of the World, perhaps a few words about this remarkable portrayal of the end times are in order... Benson foresees the future state of the world in which he recognized he was already living—a world focused entirely on the present material potentiality of humankind, and completely blind to spiritual reality. It is also a world in which a kind of humane gentleness (including the widespread availability of “euthanasia houses”) is maintained beneath a façade of tolerance for those still attached to the old religions, of which only Catholicism is perceived as potentially threatening.