[ad_1]
Pope Francis, a critic of “fanaticism” sometimes installed in the Church, considers that culinary or sexual pleasure “is simply divine”, according to an interview book published this Wednesday in Italy. “The Church has condemned inhuman, crude and vulgar pleasure, but it has always accepted human, sober and moral pleasure,” said the Pope, in response to questions from Carlo Petrini, Italian writer and gourmet.
In the same interview, the Pope stressed that “pleasure comes directly from God; it is not Catholic, not Christian, or anything else, it is simply divine.” “The pleasure of eating serves to keep you healthy through food, just as sexual pleasure is made to beautify love and ensure the perpetuation of the species,” added the pontiff.
The Pope is categorically opposed to “a fanatical morality” that rejects the notion of pleasure, which existed in the history of the Catholic Church, but which constitutes “a misinterpretation of the Christian message.” This gaze “caused enormous damage, which is still strongly felt in some cases today,” laments the Argentine Pope.
“On the contrary, the pleasure of eating well, like sexual pleasure, comes from God,” insisted the spiritual leader of 1.3 billion Catholics.
In the book, the Pope underlines his unconditional admiration for the film “Babette’s Feast”, which takes place in an ultra-Puritan Danish Protestant community of the 19th century, invited to a sumptuous banquet prepared by a French chef who wins the lottery. “For me it is a hymn to Christian charity, to love”, says the Pope.
The book “TerraFutura”, which contains three interviews with Pope Francis on integral ecology, was written by the world founder of the concept of “slow food”, created in the 1980s, to oppose “fast food” (food Quick).
The publication focuses on Pope Francis’ social vision on ecology, expressed in the encyclical “Laudato Si”, published in 2015.
