Did Pope Benedict XVI condemn "rock music" as satanic?

  • Thread starter Thread starter catholick345
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Lost_Wanderer said:
Tell that to your idol Mozart.

That has more to do with context than the music. One can admit that Gregorian chant fits the culturally prevalent image of medieval Catholic cathedrals. On the other hand, I doubt that’s the kind of music I wanna hear walking the halls of my university or even when I was in highschool.
Click to expand...
Well, I don’t think rock and roll music should be allowed to be played anywhere that it can be heard in public. If you want to listen to it, you have to make sure that no one else who wants to hear it will hear it. Rock and roll makes me sick. It gives me headaches, makes me tremble, and if I can hear you playing it while I’m anywhere in public I should be able to sue you for assault and battery with a deadly stereo amplifier, lol. And if you want, you can sue me for bringing unwanted music into your presence as well.

How does that sound? We’ll find the happy medium. Don’t come near me, I don’t go near you. Sound fair?
 
Lost_Wanderer said:
Yet people segregated vegetables from fruits and meat from salts and spices. The reason, obviously because it’ll create one big mess.

Compartmentalizing doesn’t divide. It simply organizes things within reasonable bounds. It helps people identify which is which so that we don’t have chaos.

In fact, despite my compartmentalizing, I listen to a variety of music. I can actually say that rock makes up just half of the music I listen to. There are even pieces of classical music that I like such as The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Putting them into different categories makes it easier for me to know where to find what I want to listen to in a particular moment. It certainly doesn’t limit my tastes.
Click to expand...
Why don’t you just separate them by the original composer? Wouldn’t that make more sense?
 
joshrp said:
And if you want, you can sue me for bringing unwanted music into your presence as well.
Click to expand...
You want fair? How about just shutting up and learning to respect other people’s different musical taste? I should know. The things my siblings listen to drive me up the wall at times but I by the grace of God, I can bear it.

As for what kind of music is suitable ‘in public’ that is another pointless debate for all genres, not just rock and classical. Personally, I actually find hip-hop more suitable to the scenes of urban America while the streets of Tokyo make me think of cutesy J-pop songs. As for my own country, I find nothing more suitable than mellow, alternative rock that reflects the slowness of my daily life.
joshrp said:
Why don’t you just separate them by the original composer? Wouldn’t that make more sense?
Click to expand...
Composers organize too. So do writers and directors. C.S. Lewis may have written Narnia but he’s also authored science-fiction and non-fiction. I doubt the man was stupid enough to put them all in one big mess.
 
In my teenage years I listened to Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and other groups. I had every Led Zeppelin album up to “Presence” as well as every Pink Floyd album up to “Animals.” I got rid of these albums and would not buy them again. Floyd’s lyrics really have little redeeming value and Zeppelin is just plain occultish. The music still appeals to me(in other words, I never stopped liking it), but I recognize that it is not good for me and does not have any “nutritional” value. I was just getting into Punk Rock(which had really just begun in the late 70’s). I had several albums by the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, the Dead Boys. These albums were simply anarchic if not downright blasphemous. None of the music created by these “artists” was even discretely good. It was all immoral. And by the way, I was 19 when I renounced it all, actually, going on 19 because I got rid of all my records(150 of them)a month before my 19th birthday. It was hard to do but I made the decision between pleasing God and pleasing myself and I felt that my ears as portals to my body which was the temple of the Holy Spirit needed to have some “rules of entry.” And for those who might be interested, during those days I had very long hair, about a foot below my shoulder. I got rid of the records before I got rid of the hair. What I was renouncing more than anything else was my rebellious lifestyle. As I said in a prior post, there is alot of secular music that is logically benign. I say “logically,” because after careful analysis I can say that some of it won’t really hurt you. Will it help you to live a godly life? Not really. I want my life to be holy and pleasing to God. I am more concerned about making God happy than in my own pleasure. I might also add that there’s really little qualitative difference between the opera Romeo and Juliet and Death Cab for Cutie’s Into the Dark. You can’t reject the one without rejecting the other. Same story, different genres.

Some music is grossly immoral and really has no place in the heart of a person desiring to live a life of faith. Led Zeppelin is just as dangerous to the spiritual life as gangster rap. Just because I happened to like Zeppelin as a teenager doesn’t mean I think it’s any better than some of what’s being sold today. A good barometer is the language. If the language would be bleeped out during a news broadcast, it’s safe to say that a person of faith should avoid it. The lifestyles of the performers are next. I honestly enjoyed Elton John and Queen but because of their lifestyles I cannot endorse nor listen to their music with any degree of enjoyment.

I have set high standards for myself. I think that Jesus is worthy of only the best that I can give Him, and if my body is my temple, then I don’t want to bring anything into the temple that is not worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven.
 
joshrp said:
If you listen to rock music all the time, Classical music can literally make you physically sick. It’s like quitting a narcotic cold turkey and going sober. It is really uncomfortable and sometimes painful. I was watching “The Magic Flute” and it was almost painful, although I thought it was the most beautiful piece of artwork I had ever seen. But after a while, once you clear your system, honestly, you see the results that Classical music has on your mind, your life, your relationships, your work, your study, everything.
Click to expand...
Huh.

‘Scuse me a minute, I have to go find Joe Stump’s electric guitar rendition of the theme from Swan Lake. Then I think maybe the Red Elvises’ version of Brahms’ Hungarian Dance (#5, not that anyone knows any others). Then the Transsiberian Orchestra’s rock cover of Beethoven’s 5th.

Ahh.

More seriously, I don’t actually believe that art is unmoral, and post-modern literary criticism is nonsense at best, Marxist psyops at worst. However.

Rock and roll contains a type of beauty. It is a different type of beauty from classical. You frankly sound like one of those Renaissance writers who looked down on the sculptures of Chartres Cathedral for not following the same artistic canons as the ancients. If someone comes to you and says the sculptures of Chartres, even the grotesques and gargoyles, are not beautiful, pluck out his eyes, because plainly he has no use for them.

If you can hear “Don’t Turn Away” by Whitesnake, “Unforgiven” by Metallica, “Spend My Life” by Slaughter, or “Windup Toy” by Alice Cooper, and call them unbeautiful, you have no use for ears.

I think the problem was you. I think you were listening to this music in a spirit of puerile rebellion and exaltation in mere loudness, rather than enjoying it for its musical qualities. So yes, I could see banishing it from your life, if it had those associations for you. But do not presume to tell me what I feel when I listen to it.

\m/:cool:
 
Pope Benedict XVI says rock music with three chord progression doesn’t excite the mind. Basically, rock music sucks.
 
Rock “music” doesn’t need the pope’s condemnation; it condemns itself. At best, it is cigarettes for your ears.
 
Just to reiterate for any newcomers (since this thread is a little older), the Pope did not “condemn” rock music. As Cardinal Ratzinger in his great book “The Spirit of the Liturgy”, he doesn’t have very kind words about it’s use in the liturgy, but that is not the same things as “condemning” it as “satanic.”

“Cigarettes for your ears”? Really, Sedonaman? 😛 😉

I beg to differ. 😃
 
Joe_5859 said:
…
“Cigarettes for your ears”? Really, Sedonaman? 😛 😉
Click to expand...
Yes. Whenever I heard someone wish he could stop smoking, I asked why he started. “Because everyone was doing it,” was the invariable response. I figure no one really likes rock; they listen to it because everyone is doing it. Hence, cigarettes for your ears.
I beg to differ. 😃
Click to expand...
Q.E.D.
 
sedonaman said:
Yes. Whenever I heard someone wish he could stop smoking, I asked why he started. “Because everyone was doing it,” was the invariable response. I figure no one really likes rock; they listen to it because everyone is doing it. Hence, cigarettes for your ears.

Q.E.D.
Click to expand...
😛

Well, it’s definitely not for everyone, but I like the music I like. I never listened to it “because everyone is doing it.” Just the opposite. I caught a lot of flak in college because alternative, grunge and ska were what was popular at the time (and my brother and I forced everyone on our dorm floor to listen to our music, which we could do as we were the only ones on our floor with a video game console that everyone wanted to play :)). I still catch flak in other quarters because it’s assumed that metal is “satanic.”

That and the fact that it just doesn’t appeal to the majority of the population. 😛

In fact, the only person I know in real life who listens to any of the same music that I do is my brother.

So, no, gaining popularity or acceptance was never a reason. Not for me in any case. 🤷
 
I do not think it is proper to go around describing something as “Satanic” just because you have a personal preference against it.
 
Joe_5859 said:
Just to reiterate for any newcomers (since this thread is a little older), the Pope did not “condemn” rock music. As Cardinal Ratzinger in his great book “The Spirit of the Liturgy”, he doesn’t have very kind words about it’s use in the liturgy, but that is not the same things as “condemning” it as “satanic.”

“Cigarettes for your ears”? Really, Sedonaman? 😛 😉

I beg to differ. 😃
Click to expand...
I completely agree! 😃

youtube.com/watch?v=lDK9QqIzhwk&ob=av2e

How could livin on a PRAYER be satanic? :p;)😃
 
VeritasLuxMea said:
I do not think it is proper to go around describing something as “Satanic” just because you have a personal preference against it.
Click to expand...
I think there is more to it than a personal preference. Otherwise, you could say a revulsion to the smell of fresh dog doo-doo is a personal preference.
 
sedonaman said:
I think there is more to it than a personal preference. Otherwise, you could say a revulsion to the smell of fresh dog doo-doo is a personal preference.
Click to expand...
Well, I’m waiting on arguments, then. Apparently this is not an accurate representation of Pope Benedict’s view.

So for what reasons do you find rock music “Satanic”?
 
sedonaman said:
I think there is more to it than a personal preference. Otherwise, you could say a revulsion to the smell of fresh dog doo-doo is a personal preference.
Click to expand...
Typical false comparison. You yourself are actually proving the point by equating rock music to fresh dog doo-doo.
 
VeritasLuxMea said:
Well, I’m waiting on arguments, then. Apparently this is not an accurate representation of Pope Benedict’s view.
Click to expand...
It wasn’t intended to be “an accurate representation of Pope Benedict’s view.”
So for what reasons do you find rock music “Satanic”?
Click to expand...
First of all, rock is not music. It is chaotic noise. The Judeo-Christian God is the God of order: "God has ordered all things in measure, number and weight.” [Wisdom 11:21]. Chaos is the opposite of Godliness, therefore is of Satan.
 
sedonaman said:
First of all, rock is not music. It is chaotic noise. The Judeo-Christian God is the God of order: "God has ordered all things in measure, number and weight.” [Wisdom 11:21]. Chaos is the opposite of Godliness, therefore is of Satan.
Click to expand...
Not all rock.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top