“Ask a Priest: Is It OK to Listen to Ungodly Music?”

Q: Is it bad to listen to ungodly music that has sex, drugs, murder, etc., in the lyrics but it doesn’t influence you personally or affect you spiritually? – Isaac

Answered by Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC

A: It’s good that you are raising this question. That could be a sign that the Holy Spirit is nudging you to rethink what you are listening to.

St. Paul tells us, “Whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Here, you might want to ask whether this music is giving glory to God. And it is worthy of your dignity as a beloved son of God? Your use of adjective “ungodly” is telling.

You say that this music doesn’t influence you personally or affect you spiritually. You might want to reconsider that view.

It certainly influences you; otherwise, you wouldn’t be attracted to it. Music – even the low-brow variety – can have a magnetic pull on a person.

Listening to music with bad messages can easily get you accustomed to a certain level of crudeness.

Moreover, by consuming this type of music you are helping to support the industry that turns out this stuff. And that in turn involves countless people dedicating their lives to producing raucous and/or risqué content.

The culture is already foul enough. Why feed the beast?

Perhaps some of this is worth taking to prayer.

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