So what pray tell makes certain types of music non-agressive, or non-base and violent, or non-depraved? Can you tell just by listening? Is it a matter of musical taste? One taste being holy and right and another taste being sinful and evil? Is it the type of instruments used? Whether or not there is distortion? Rather if the performers have long hair or sing in a certain way?
I’m sorry but this is so open to matters of opinion I find it hard to believe there is anything within Scrpture or Church Tradition that would condemn a musical style simply for the “way it sounds”. A musician can write a song that is completely satanic and evil and use nothing but a simple acoustic guitar melody with all major chords. If you can’t understand the words it might sound like a perfectly innocent song.
Am I way off base here and just crazy or is there something to these ideas I’m spouting off?
Dear FromTheAshes777,
Cordial greetings and a very good day. Thankyou for your response.
First, dear friend, it is frequently asserted by modern Catholics that if rock/metal music was so eregiously immoral and bad then surely the Magisterium would have wasted no time in denouncing it as such. However, Holy Mother Church expects the faithful to use their own prudential judgment and sanctified common sense in their deliberations and decision making. This can, of course, be problematic if a man has lost his moral sense as a result of becoming so imbued with the distracting and demoralizing influences of the godless world, which precludes him from being able to distinguish between that which is wholesome and unwholesome. Needless to say, that applies to anything be it music, literature, film or appropriate clothing choices. Thus not making a catastrophic error of prudential judgment presupposes that a man does not have a radically defective conscience which prevents him from making the correct decisions as regards things about which the Church has not directly pronounced upon.
However, in one sense Holy Mother Church could be said to denounce rock/heavy metal music insofar as it teaches against anything that is harmful to the innate dignity of man or which glamorizes sin and sexual permissiveness. Now, dear friend, that rock/heavy metal music do just that is not a matter of subjective opinion but an indisputable fact that admits of no serious doubt. Even many within the pro-rock/metal camp freely admit that this debased music genre has been the occasion of an immense amount of high moral damage, especially among the youth who are jolly impressionable and all too easily influenced by their favourite rock performers.
It may be an unpalatable truth, given the worldliness that is so ubiquitous in contemporary Catholicism, but this debased sensory material does make its appeal to something very basic and primitive in our fallen natures. This is, dear friend, hardly surprising when we consider that rock/metal music is so wedded to a particular immoral philosophy and outlook. The music itself conveys a message, irrespective of any lyrics to which it may be appended and as such is beyond artistic redemption.
The fact is that this deplorable music is inseparable from an anti-religious, anti-authoritarian and, certainly, and anti-moral world-view; its predominant message has always been sexual permissiveness and revolt against lawful authority. In point of fact, it was an art form that was specifically created to express precisely this sort of godless and immoral outlook. Moreover, it is undeniable that its role has been pivitol in prompting youth to shamefully discard cultural and sexual restraints. This unsavoury music genre, dear friend, has always gravitated in the direction of aggression and sexual licentiousness, one could say that it just cannot help itself, coming as it does from a Augean stable of unimaginable filth and depravity.
Owing to its unsavoury associations, dear friend, rock and heavy metal will never ennoble and stimulate that which is virtuous in man, unlike the classics or sacred music, and to this extent it is at variance with the entire Christian philosophy of life. Those who assimilate the vulgarity of rock/metal music will not develop a passionate attachment to that which is pure, lovely and virtuous (cf. Phillip. 4: 8). On the contrary, this dreadful music will, at length, corsen manners, poison the mind and demoralize the life. Now, dear friend, there will be those who will say that this is nothing more than self-righteous nonsense that leads eventually to a confined and prudish world. This is, quite frankly, utter balderdash and is the typical worldly response which refuses to face up to the challenge of sanctity and separation from the godless world and its forbidden pleasures.
God bless.
Warmest good wishes,
Portrait
Pax
