The Church and Seculat Art

I had a question posed about the Church and Secular art:

I was just wondering if the Catholic church has any official teachings regarding the music we can or can’t listen to. Prior to my reversion, everybody had some sort of different interpretation. Some people were more convicted than others about certain genres, opinions were very strong, and I didn't know what to believe. So I never really knew if there was any official teachings or standards that we should follow. With that being said, now that I’m Catholic, I’m wanting to revisit this topic again. I appreciate you all and hope everyone has a great weekend. God bless.

My response: 

Historically, actually, the Church has had a lot to say on the effect of secular arts on the Catholic soul. You usually have to consult theologians and teachings from the ordinary magisterium, but, yes, there is a lot of historically mine about the effects of secular arts (from music to sculpture to theater) on the soul. 

Even going back to the early Church, there was great concern in some areas about even allowing music into the Christian liturgy because it was viewed as Pagan influence. It kind of depends on which early Church father you are reading and how they viewed 'Pagan' or pre-Christian in relation to the Christian message. Some theologians like Tertullian rejected all things Pagan as just an attempt by Satan to ruin souls (philosophy, music, everything). Other had more nuanced approaches where we could use certain elements of Pagan culture or philosophy if we could see Christ foreshadowed in the teaching or cultural element. There were a few that basically went so far as to de facto treat pre-Christian philosophers like Socrates as an almost pre-Christian saint, premises on Natural Law.

For example of this, St John Chrysostom taught:

“The theater is the seat of the devil. There is nothing more destructive than attending these performances… they overturn chastity and nourish passions” (Homily on Matthew, Ch. 6).

You can follow this logic through Aquinas' teachings on the human senses. He was following a more medieval idea of the passions, and advocated that you had to use the physical senses to lead one to Christ and not have the senses lead you away from Christ. Secular music and theater and arts can fuel the passions, and from the passions comes sin and the great churchy word concupiscence (which I found just now is such a now antiquated word that spell check has no idea what it is). 

But you saw this thinking well into the 20th century in Catholic teaching. Even the previous 1917 Code of Canon law had this gem:

“Clerics must abstain from all things unbecoming to their state, especially games, theatrical entertainments, and secular dances” (Canon 138)."

Even as late at the 1950s, the Pope wrote in an encyclical:

“It is not enough for the Church to preach the truth; she must also see that the instruments of communication do not counteract her work by spreading error, immorality, or irreligion” (Miranda Prorsus, §12)."

Then came the 1960s. And a lot of these views and teachings became unfashionable and frumpy sounding, even to well meaning Catholics. Kind of like when we look back at the cultural backlash to rock n roll when it was becoming a thing. Parents and old people were often interviewed at the time saying all this secular music was the devil's work to corrupt the youth. Records by Elvis got publicly burned (not specifically by Catholics) for incorporating Gospel music traditions into them. 

And, to be fair, compared to the vile filth that passes for some top 10 music today, outrages like Wooly Bully by Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs seems almost comically clean compared to some of the gangster rap that openly glorifies rape and murder or, and one song that was on the top of the several charts for two months about two years ago that won a Grammy whose title is literally so profane and sexually vulgar I can't even in conscience type its name here. 

So,.yes, the Church has a long history of warning that secular music can lead people away from Christ. That's not to say that all of it is leading you straight to hell nor is it to say that certain people in the church seriously over reacted to some secular music or art when it came out back in the day, reactions that now seem comically antiquated. 

One last thought: there used to be in philosophy the idea of the music of the spheres that goes back to Pythagoras and the Greeks and picked up on my Aquinas and other theologians. The idea that music is so powerful a universal primal force that it literally generates and moves planets. I think that's a good way of approaching art. The premise does still hold that art should engender us to look to God and his glorious creation and not down to our our own passions and desires.

 I think a good rule of thumb when thinking about any form of art is the old adage, 'Does this art (song, painting, novel, theater production, movie) point me toward Christ or does it point me in another direction?' If upon reflection it is the later, maybe as a Catholic, we shouldn't be listening/watching/contemplating this piece or so called art if that music of the spheres is leading us back to the shores of the ultimate source of beauty, which is the Divine, or is that art a tsunami which washes us back out into the sea of passions and sin?