On Beliefs this week, our guest discusses the ways that religion has both served, and failed, people throughout history.

Since retiring from a career in international financial consulting based in New York City, Robert Henrey has devoted time to writing and travel, as well as to community involvement. An ordained Catholic deacon, he served as a hospital chaplain for over a decade. More recently, Henrey has embarked on a series of lectures to share his experiences and reflections with community groups on a number of his lifelong interests. These include the richly paradoxical histories of the major religious traditions and the impact of language on culture.

His most recent book, “Bloodshot Mountain,” published in the U.K., recounts the profound social and economic impact that the discovery of the world’s richest silver mine in the Andes Mountains had on early colonial Latin America. Henrey is currently working on a writing project involving early linguists who set out to explore and find common ground with other cultures.

Henrey is a graduate of Oxford University, where he studied language, history and literature.