GLUTTONY. - A capital sin consisting in the disordered appetite for food and drink. It is a vice opposed to the special virtues of abstinence and sobriety, which are linked to the general virtue of temperance and moderate according to reason the desire for and the use of food and drink. Gluttony is a degeneration of the instinct that leads man to crave the nourishment necessary for existence; it is an inversion of values whereby the pleasures of the table come to the fore and what is purely a means becomes the end.
According to St. Gregory (Moral., XXX, 13) and St. Thomas (2a-2ae, q. 148, a. 4) the disorder of gluttony can occur in the five ways indicated by the following verse: praepropere, laute, nimis, ardenter, studiose, that is: praepropere, eating at the wrong time, very frequently; laute, procuring exquisite, very costly foods or drinks; nimis, feeding beyond the reasonable demands of appetite; ardenter, applying oneself to food with excessive greed; studiose, overdoing the manner of seasoning foods in order to make them ever more tasty.
As for the malice of gluttony: 1) excess in taking food is of itself venial, since it is a matter of exaggeration in something of itself lawful. It can nevertheless accidentally become mortal by reason of grave harm to health; of the incapacity it causes to attend to one's duty; of scandal; of excessive prodigality that can harm others too, as, for example, family members and debtors; but above all by reason of a bad end, such as that of living in order to eat. In this sense, that is, of the condemnation of pleasure as an end, is to be understood the condemnation that Innocent XI gave of the following proposition: "It is not a sin to eat and drink to satiety for pleasure alone, provided that no harm is done to health, since the natural appetite may lawfully enjoy its acts" (Denz-U, 1158). For when the pursuit of pleasure is in conformity with reason, that is, serves as a stimulus to the necessary nourishment, it cannot be illicit, since the Author of nature himself has attached pleasure to the performance of this vital function. For excess in drink, v. ALCOOLISMO; UBRIACHEZZA.
As for the gravity of the fault, evidently it cannot but be mortal to bring about perfect drunkenness without a proportionate reason. Holy Scripture also lists this among the sins that exclude from the Kingdom of heaven (I Cor. 6, 10) and reason itself easily persuades that it cannot but be grave to deprive oneself, for mere pleasure, of the use of reason, not to mention the grave consequences that ordinarily accompany this violent privation. Imperfect drunkenness is of itself only a light fault. Accidentally this too can become grave. The principal remedies against gluttony are: consideration of the physical and moral consequences that usually accompany this vice; flight from the occasion, especially when it is a matter of drunkenness; the exercise of temperance.
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GOLA (art). - Term with which one of the seven fundamental mouldings of classical architecture is indicated. Its profile has the character of a double hollow, that is, it is determined by two tangent arcs with the concavity on opposite sides. One distinguishes a straight gula from an inverted gula; the former has the concavity above the convexity, the latter vice versa; v. ORDINI ARCHITETTONICI.