Of all the human vices, gluttony is the most dangerous and is “killing the planet”, Pope Francis said yesterday. People reveal their inner selves, the kind of soul they possess, by the way they eat, he said.
Speaking at the general audience in Rome in his third in a catechesis series on vices and virtues, the pope admitted that the sin of those who succumb before a piece of cake, all things considered, does not cause great damage.
But he continued, “The voracity with which we have been plundering the goods of the planet for some centuries now is compromising the future of all. We have grabbed everything, in order to become the masters of all things.” This was the sin. “The fury of the belly is a great sin: we have abjured the name of men, to assume another, consumers.”
Pope Francis said that unlike the ascetic John the Baptist, Jesus was comfortable with fine wining and dining, as exemplified by his first miracle, at the wedding at Cana. “His behaviour causes scandal in some quarters, because not only is he benevolent towards sinners, but he even eats with them.”
“Jesus says clearly that what makes something good or bad, let us say, the bad thing about food, is not the food in itself but the relationship we have with it. And we see this, when a person has a disordered relationship with food; we see how they eat, they eat hastily, as though with the urge to be full but without ever being sated. They do not have a good relationship with food, they are slaves to food.”
Eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, obesity are spreading, the pope said, linking such ailments to “sufferings of the psyche and the soul”.
There is a connection between psychological imbalance and the way food is consumed, he added. “The way we eat is the manifestation of something inner: a predisposition to balance or immoderation; the capacity to give thanks or the arrogant presumption of autonomy; the empathy of those who share food with the needy, or the selfishness of those who hoard everything for themselves.
“This question is so important. Tell me how you eat, and I will tell you what kind of soul you possess. In the way we eat, we reveal our inner selves, our habits, our psychological attitudes.”
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