Are you prepared to condemn G.K. Chesterton and St. Thomas Aquinas as gluttons and sensualists as well? Don't forget St. Francis of Assisi and his love for quail I believe it was. (to eat, not to keep as pets)
Dear Gerard.P,
Oh, gee whiz, I'm not going to condemn ANYONE for being a glutton or a sensualist. To note that someone appears to have sinned isn't to condemn them. To note that they appear to revel in their sin STILL isn't to condemn them.
Sinners often repent.
But if they perform an objective evil, well, then, they perform an objective evil, and it isn't calumny to note it.
As for St. Thomas Aquinas and GK Chesterton, I'll note that it appears that they too may have had to struggle with the sin of gluttony. What I can't tell you is how their own constitutions may have entered into the picture. Although I must work hard to avoid gluttony, my body isn't my ally in some regards, as I gain weight easily and lose it with difficulty. Nonetheless, I won't tell you that my extra pounds are the result of "genetics."
So, perhaps Mr. Chesterton and St. Thomas were gluttons who struggled with the sin of gluttony. Big deal. All of us have these struggles of one sort or other.
The difference, though, is that I don't recall either of the two aforementioned gentleman writing odes to their sensual cravings, or that they feed their souls through the sensual delights. If you can provide quotations from either glorifying their search for the highest aesthetic culinary experience, I'd be interested in reading them.
Heck, I figure most of us who live in the United States have to struggle in some way with sins related to sensualism. It's so easy to fill our bellies, to indulge our other senses. I condemn NO ONE for having to struggle with the same things with which I must daily struggle.
But I don't hold up as a worthwhile exemplar of Catholic values those who promote as a positive good these sins.
sitetest
It is one thing altogether to enjoy ones food. Its another thing to eat and drink excessively, and make your belly and the satisfying of it the center of your daily quests and lifes work, and then another thing again to publicize this fact and spread it abroad as if it were a virtue one is to be proud of.
I love bratwursts and beer. But if I never drank another sip or ate another bite of either, it wouldn't be the end of the world for me, as apparently it would be for Messer. Coulombe by his own admission if he lost out on his ethnic fare and his drink.
"Be ye followers of me, brethren: and observe them who walk so as you have our model. For many walk, of whom I have told you often (and now tell you weeping) that they are enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction: whose God is their belly: and whose glory is in their shame: who mind earthly things." (Philipians 3.17-19)
I'm not aware of St. Thomas ever glorifying his culinary appetite, great as it may have been, as something wonderful about life and his person.