Cell phones at church

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All of those things would be a conversation of their own. In all charity, I am just going to stick with the topic in this thread.

God bless.
 
People live on their phones. Years ago people who had family and friends thousands of miles away would send Christmas and Birthday cards. They might speak on the phone a few times a year. Now often they speak, text, exchange photos multiple times a day. And its free.

My mother in law used to hate it when her grandchildren took out their phones during dinner, then her daughter in law started to do the same. At the time her daughter in law was in her 50’s. So its not just the young who do this.

Many people who take holiday and have senior positions at work are told to keep checking their emails when they are not in the office.

Personally if the phone is on silent I wouldn’t have a problem with this. But this is just me.

Alex
 
Not too long ago, my mother who is now deceased when to a family member’s home for Christmas meal and she said everyone except her and one other person, sat around, spending the time looking at their cell phones, each one in a world of their own. This included adults and teens.
 
My point is that all of those things HAVE been topics of their own. Everybody has got their bugaboos about what constitutes “disrespect” at church. Nobody wants to recognize and accept that maybe their bugaboos are just that, THEIR bugaboos, that THEY need to set aside.

I recently read something from a pastor where he had some minor objection to something his congregation was doing at church, and then he reminded himself that at least the people were there, praying.

In this case, the OP has a situation where people are going to confession, so many people that there is a line to get into the confessional. There have been threads on here where some priests said they stopped hearing confessions because they would sit in there for a half hour and nobody showed up. But at this church, people are apparently coming in significant numbers.

And what does the OP do? Nit pick because some of the people in line were on their cell phones.

You could remove the part about “cell phones” and add in any of the topics I mentioned, and make a whole thread. It’s ridiculous. How about we be like the pastor and be glad people are at church, going to confession, praying, etc.

I’m muting this thread now because the level of needless nit picking on it is making me feel pretty uncharitable myself.
God bless
 
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I haven’t read the other posts here so forgive me if I’m repeating a thought.

I sometimes use my cell phone while waiting for confession. Mind you, I’m not texting or aimlessly surfing. I have a prayer App which includes prayers for confession, prayers for my priest, prayers for repentance and an Examination of Conscience according to a method used by Saint Ignatius Loyola.

I also need my cell phone as I reference a list of my sins (which are too many to remember off the top of my head.) There is the occasional time I add a few to my list since I could be waiting 20 minutes or more for my turn. My ringer is always off and I don’t respond to anything that may be a distraction. I’m not important enough. 😏
 
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MagdalenaRita said:
During the Sacrament of Penance people can already be nervous and are trying to concentrate on God’s mercy.
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I think sometimes that’s why I use my cell phone. Because I’m nervous and a little spiritual reading can be much better than sitting there contemplating how I’m inevitably going to mess it up.
 
 
I think that is fine. I know very good Catholics who come early or stay late after Mass to pray the Divine Office on their phones and yes there are a lot of very good apps with prayers and I don’t have a problem with that and maybe that is what everyone was doing. I hope so and as I said as long as someone is being respectful of where they are and who is around them, I don’t think it is a problem.

It is when it becomes texting, giggling and game playing it is a problem and you can usually tell if that is what they are doing. I rarely see something like that happen in our parish.

I guess I do think that if we have to wait a few minutes to answer a text due to safety while driving a car, we should also be able to wait a few minutes until we are out of confession also to answer text messages, so if that would be what they were doing it would be different.
 
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No, of course not, you would hope his reading something while you are confessing wouldn’t prevent him from hearing what you said but it still would not invalidate the sacrament.
 
AlbertDerGrosse said:
No. I’m a grown man. You’re not getting my phone. I’m using it as a missal/devotional, I have the brightness turned down, it’s silent, and not distracting anyone save for the perpetually perturbed, who, let’s face it, would just find something else to be bothered by.
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You get all the likes today.
 
Our church can be very quiet. And some penitents can be really loud. And some people can get really, really close to the door. So as to preserve the seal, I will either make conversation or play some Gregorian Chant out loud if on one wants to talk.
 
A while back one of the lectors posted how disheartening it was to be reading and look out and see folks looking down at their missals.
 
Cell phones should NOT be used in church. If one is making an examination of conscience for confession, bring a prayerbook/missal with you.

And if you must bring it with you, either shut it off or put it on SILENT or AIRPLANE mode.

I can’t tell you how many times someone’s cell phone has gone off in church especially during Father’s homily. It scares the living daylights out of me.
 
Honestly if they’re being USED that’s probably less likely to happen. Cell phones going off in church is more likely one of the many people who keep it in their pocket or purse and forgot to check it. If it’s in use people are more likely to silence it.
 
At my previous parish, use of cell phones during Mass to take notes and record thoughts from prayer was encouraged. The priest would often kick off his homily with, “Please feel free to use whatever devices you like to take notes or record this for your own use.” It was very effective, and a great way to engage the parish more deeply in Mass and scripture.

Electronic devices are, for many people, the equivalent of a notebook. If using that “notebook” allows them to better connect with the sacraments, so much the better!

Now, I don’t agree with texting or non-Mass related use of devices at Church. That’s rude.
 
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Love this, and Denise’s reply! Really—who cares?!

Curmudgeons will always find something to begrudge. This person’s also probably complaining about the UV filtration of the lightbulbs, too, or the breathing of another parishioner 5 pews over.

How about just being happy that those people attend Mass? ☺️
 
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In the RC church near me, you have to stand at least 5-6 pews away from the confessional.
 
I do that too. Although honestly most of mine are…not that interesting. I don’t imagine many people would find my continual failure to make time to say prayers (for example) to be particularly gossip worthy.
 
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