Home > Pope > Biographies of Popes

Online Shop

Biographies of Popes

Benedict XV

Courageous Prophet of Peace

Beck, Fr Ashley

Life of the Pope who worked for peace during the First World War

Giacomo della Chiesa, a small, highly intelligent man, disabled with a limp, was elected pope in September 1914, only weeks after the tragic outbreak of the First World War. Within 8 years he had died. Now, as then arguably, he remains a dishonoured prophet who worked courageously to stop the carnage, against all the odds, and yet whose name today Pope Benedict XVI has made resound again in a world so troubled with violence, hatred and wars.