Tremendous Trifles

Mae West chose a jail term over a fine in 1927, and the coverage taught a crowd that a morals charge could sell seats. Later popes still called the screen a gift that could teach.

Bishops prayed over the president in the Oval Office, and some Catholics treated the prayer itself as the offense.

Sinatra's My Way calls a finished life the one where the regrets stay unmentioned. Confession is the decision to mention them.

On October 17 they set the Limoges town hall on fire. John Paul II did not predict that fire. In 1998 he named what happens when a people can no longer aim at a shared truth.

Marshall McLuhan warned that the screen matters more than the show on it. Five books, from a stocking ad to a wired planet. He was a Catholic the whole time.

A reading of The Perfect Game, from G.K. Chesterton's Tremendous Trifles. The essay stands on its own.

Shulamith Firestone's 1970 program did not stop at a fairer workplace. It wanted the difference between man and woman erased. The Church calls that envy.

A reading of The Secret of a Train, from G.K. Chesterton's Tremendous Trifles. The essay stands on its own.

A reading of A Piece of Chalk, from G.K. Chesterton's Tremendous Trifles. The essay stands on its own.

A reading of the first essay in G.K. Chesterton's Tremendous Trifles. The book and the essay share the name. These readings stand on their own.