Dear Father,
Some people at my parish are now using their phones to follow along with the readings and prayers at Mass. I’ve also seen priests using their electronic devices at Mass for the readings and homily notes and prayers. Is this allowed? Should I say something?
-Jeanne
Dear Jeanne,
Electronic handhelds have become quite the nuisance at Mass and elsewhere. I already wrote about the problem of digital screens in the church and phones in the confessional.
Pope Francis criticized phones at Mass during a General Audience in Rome in November 2017: “Why does the priest presiding at the celebration say at a certain point: ‘Lift up our hearts’? He does not say: ‘Lift up your cell phones to take a photo!’ No, that’s bad! I tell you, it makes me sad when I am celebrating here in Saint Peter’s Square or in the Basilica to see many cell phones lifted up, not only by the faithful but also by some priests and even bishops! But please! Mass is not a spectacle: it is going to encounter the Passion and Resurrection of the Lord. This is why the priest says: ‘Lift up our hearts’. What does this mean? Remember: no cell phones.”
Secular news reports said that the pope made an off-the-cuff remark that the cell phone used during Mass “is a very ugly thing.”
Pope Francis added: “The Mass is not a show: it is to go to meet the passion and resurrection of the Lord. The Lord is here with us, present. Many times, we go there, we look at things and chat among ourselves while the priest celebrates the Eucharist… But it is the Lord! Think: when you go to Mass, the Lord is there! And you’re distracted. (But) it is the Lord!”
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Even the American Pope Leo XIV wants us to leave our phones and tablets aside, especially during prayer. Responding to a young person’s question at the 2026 Summer for the children of Vatican employees, the pope acknowledged that technology can be very good. “But when we are together, there is no need to have a mobile phone, smartphone, or tablet in our hands all the time. In fact, we are happy whenever, even for a little while, we are not tied to our tablets or our phones.”
Pope Leo went on: “Even if we can have the Bible or some prayers on our phones, God does not want to look at our phones; God wants to look at our hearts and at our lives. So we need to be free from these things which, in themselves, can be entertaining, helpful, and even good, but it is far more important to develop our humanity through friendship, conversation,” and other activities.
He warned the not-so-young, too: “There is another point—and this is especially for those who are a little older. We need to be careful about the mechanism of a kind of dependency that is deliberately built into the programs and applications on our phones. They are designed to make us dependent on this technology.”
A learned friend and mother recently told me something that I think we should do: ban phones in the nave of the church. She was adamant: ban them, don’t just tell people to put their phones in Airplane mode.
One essential reason to ban the use of phones is that the vast use of our phones is for secular and profane things. The phone is not a sacred object the way that the Roman Missal is, which contains the prayers that the priest prays at Mass. The Lectionary, too, is the sacred book with all the biblical readings. These books are sacred because they are completely devoted to assisting all of us in giving worship to God.
Our phones communicate all sorts of secular, and sometimes non-virtuous, if not downright sinful, things. I remember hearing someone scolding a man for lewd language in this way: Do you use those same lips to utter vulgarities and to kiss your wife?
Another problem is that all sorts of notifications, including pesky text messages, pop up all the time. As my friend said: “Who will have the willpower not to check a text notification—even a silent one—if it’s urgent: ‘Granny’s been hit by a bus!’; ‘Fido died!’; ‘The University won!’” At Mass, everything else but God can wait, even Granny, because the Mass is THE most important thing ever.
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Listening at Mass is key. How many times have parents said to their children (or, spouses to each other): stop what you’re doing, look at me, and listen to me. I’m sure that our Lord is saying the same to us: Listen to Me. Hear me through the voice of the priest and the voice of the lector.
It’s hard to pay attention, too, when someone else’s phone is glowing. Even movie theaters and stage productions tell the audience to put away their phones. We certainly aren’t going to be like concert-goers and wave our lit-up screens during the “Holy, Holy, Holy”!
At Mass and other liturgical rites, we are supposed to use our ears to hear the person God has put before us. We are meant to focus intently on the words of the Scriptures and of the prayers.
Some will undoubtedly say that they can focus more by reading and listening. I don’t buy it. A wife doesn’t read a script of her husband’s loving words; she listens to him. How cheap would words of love be if we insisted on a script during a love conversation?! God desires greater intimacy with us than any spouse could ever express, and that means that we have the responsibility to learn how to hear him.
When he spoke to the youth at the summer event, after warning about the built-in design to make us dependent on phones, Pope Leo urged everyone to disconnect for periods of time: limited use at certain times of the day, or during conversations with people, or meal times, and so forth.
Interestingly, even at a secular level, business leaders, psychologists, doctors, and life coaches all say the same thing: unplug for periods of time in order to take control of your life.
From a Catholic perspective, let’s all unplug in church, so that God can have his place in our lives. This includes priests and bishops!
You might be able to get away with saying something in all charity to your fellow parishioners about the distraction of their cell phone use at Mass. It’s tricky, however. Maybe it would be better to speak with your priest in person, not through a text message.