Detecting if a render or redirect_to has been called

I know that you can only render / redirect_to once in a controller action, but I was wondering if there's a property I can check to see if a render / redirect_to has been called. For example, I have a method I call to check access to a page, but I can't do it in a filter because the page needs to be loaded first in order to check the permissions. (I'm writing a CMS and the pages are loaded dynamically based on the URL passed in)

Here's a simplified version of my code:

In my PagesController:

def index # See if page is member's only require_member if @page.private?

# if not, redirect to the proper page redirect_to pages_url(@page) and return

end

In my ApplicationController:

  def require_member     unless current_member       store_location       redirect_to login_url and return     end   end

The issue is that because require_member is in my application controller (so it can be used by other controllers) the "and return" is returning execution back to the calling method instead of actually ending execution.

Is there a way to check to see if require_member initiated a redirect without setting a session / global flag?