Is it OK to use your iPhone/Hand Held Device at Adoration/Church?

by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader:

With technology: iPads, iPods, iphones, Kindles, etc. I have noticed people listening to, I presume, music in the adoration chapel. Being humans, this sensual stimulation can bring us into deeper prayer.. is this appropriate to do during adoration? (Spiritual or Religious music, of course.)



Perhaps they are listening to “white noise” in order to block out the snoring from across the chapel?

I don’t have a problem with the use of these things in a context where people “get them”.

Incontrovertible truth based on person anecdote:

I was reading my Office on my iPhone in a church in Manhattan one day and a self-appointed nose-thruster-in-er took it upon herself to harangue me about how people shouldn’t “play with their phones” in church. She was … of a certain age, an age that suggested that perhaps she still had a hand-cranked wall-phone and called her fridge the “ice box”.

Nevertheless, the experience with Mrs. Butinski drove home to me that there is a generation gap of sensitivity about these electronic things. A lot of people of a certain age see all these things as “toys”, and therefore not appropriate for church. They don’t get that you can read Scripture, say your office, read of list of intention or people for whom you pray and their needs, etc.

You are not the only one in the chapel. Remember that other people are there to pray and, even if it is none of their business what you use, your use of these things can be a distraction to them.

And, let’s not fool ourselves, there is a temptation to leave of prayer during Adoration for the lure of the little palatiri at whose fascinating flicker we willingly gaze.

Be prudent.

That said… it is actually possible not to use these things for a hour and still manage to pray and adore the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament! Edgy and retro, I know. But, take it from me, it still works!