In 1907, the English convert Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson wrote The Lord of the World, in which he predicted inter-city air travel in “velors” (anticipating Zeppelins and war planes), electric billboards, globalized finance, rapid communications, atomic bombs, and the world progress of Marxism and world war. While abortion was beyond the pale even in this dystopia, he did foresee legalized euthanasia.

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Benson was a brilliant neurotic, given to pulpit hysteria and remarkable narcissism. I was relieved years ago to learn that Father Martindale, whom I much admired, wrote his biography of Benson only under obedience to his Jesuit superiors. Still, notwithstanding his eccentricities, Benson was far more than a curiosity in his own land. He had a phenomenal impact on preaching and writing even in New York, where he loved to ride trains with the engineer in the locomotive.

He knew his book would be volatile, so he wrote in a preface: “I am perfectly aware that this is a terribly sensational book, and open to innumerable criticisms on that account, as well as on many others. But I did not know how else to express the principles I desired (and which I passionately believe to be true) except by producing their lines to a sensational point. I have tried, however, not to scream unduly loud, and to retain, so far as possible, reverence and consideration for the opinions of other people. Whether I have succeeded in that attempt is quite another matter.”

He writes of a young political figure from the American midwest, with enormous financial resources, who offers himself as a pacific healer of divisions between Eastern and Western world cultures. Julian Felsenburgh’s rise to power is inexplicable in terms of any accomplishment. He is serenely self-confident, cool to the point of coldness, and capable of reducing crowds to sobbing and fainting by his prepared speeches; he persuades all nations — which had not heard of him until recently — to make him “president” of the world.