“It is not difficult for an observer who operates solely on the level of psychology and experience to discover that degradation in the area of pleasure and love is in proportion to the void left in man from the false and deceptive joys sought in those things which St. Paul called the ‘ works of the flesh’: ‘ immorality, impurity, licentiousness . . . drinking bouts, orgies and the like’ (Gal.5:19,21). One can add to these false joys—and there are many connected with them—those sought in the possession and immoderate use of wealth, in luxury, in ambition for power, in short, in that passion for an almost frantic
search for earthly goods which can easily produce a darkened mind, as St. Paul mentions (cf. Eph. 4:18-19), and Jesus laments (cf. Mk. 4:19).”
(Pope Saint John Paul II, General Audience of June 19, 1991)