Usury and the Church

[Maria]

I'm reading the commentaries and notes on the canons, and it appears that charging interest was legal in some circumstances in the Christian Roman Empire. I will look further into this, but for now I would probably approach the matter in the following way: are you charging interest on behalf of yourself, or on behalf of your business? Banks accept deposits in order to lend them to others who have immediate need of cash and who are prepared to repay the loan when they have profited from it. Like any business, banks can charge a price for their services, and that's what the interest rate is about.

In Apostolic times, Christians "had all things in common". I think in principle we should give away freely of our possessions, and not charging interest is just part of that; we also should not even expect a repayment of the principal. But society as a whole only functions if property rights are respected, and while we are always free to give away our personal property, we have no right to expect others to give us anything for free, but we should expect to pay for it.

jgress,

By any chance, have you read the book, “Usury in Christendom," by Michael Hoffman? Hoffman is the author of Usury in Christendom: The Mortal Sin that Was and Now is Not.

From this root of evil comes the template for revolutionary change by which God’s other Laws and statutes have been gradually derogated and then overthrown by the Renaissance and post-Renaissance Church. [Extract from M.H. book.]

Nadir

Thank you for mentioning this reference. Undoubtedly, there is a connection between usury and the Italian Catholic Mafia.

When I was attending a Catholic university, in our theology classes, the priests would tell us about the many phone calls they would get around midnight asking them to wait outside the rectory. Then a black car would appear, and the priest would quickly enter that car. He would be asked to hear a man's confession. Afterwards, he would be returned to the rectory almost exactly 30 minutes later. Later that morning or afternoon, there would be a newspaper account about a murdered man, whose picture the priest could recognize. The murdered man had been shot execution style in a Catholic Mafia hit.

The priests told us that if a Catholic Mafia member had double crossed the Mafia, then he would be killed without the benefit of confession while he was making love to a prostitute, guaranteeing that he would spend his time in hell for all eternity.

Almost all of these hits were due to unpaid loans. Usury can be deadly.

[jgress]

So the murdered man was the one he confessed? Doesn't that contradict what you said later, about the Mafia killing someone without letting them hear confession? I'm a bit confused.

[Maria]

So the murdered man was the one he confessed? Doesn't that contradict what you said later, about the Mafia killing someone without letting them hear confession? I'm a bit confused.

If the murdered man had double crossed the Mafia, then he was not allowed a free pass into heaven (Confession before his execution). Instead he was set up with a prostitute (a common Mafia reward for doing a deed), and then he was suddenly ambushed and murdered, so there was no time to repent.

If the murdered man had to be eliminated because he was a weak link and could be arrested by the police or was considered too risky to keep alive, then he was allowed a last confession before his execution style murder.

[NadirGP]

So the murdered man was the one he confessed? Doesn't that contradict what you said later, about the Mafia killing someone without letting them hear confession? I'm a bit confused.

If the murdered man had double crossed the Mafia, then he was not allowed a free pass into heaven (Confession before his execution). Instead he was set up with a prostitute (a common Mafia reward for doing a deed), and then he was suddenly ambushed and murdered, so there was no time to repent.

If the murdered man had to be eliminated because he was a weak link and could be arrested by the police or was considered too risky to keep alive, then he was allowed a last confession before his execution style murder.

Maria,

This priest you have written about it, does not sound plausible to me, not because I do not believe such things; but rather because it sounds like this story comes right out of Mario Puzzo’s novel, The Godfather.

The “Catholic Mafia,” as you called it, is a misnomer, to say the least. This because MAFIA is a hierarchically structured secret organization allegedly engaged in smuggling, racketeering, trafficking in narcotics, and other criminal activities in the U.S., Italy, and elsewhere. [See: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Mafia?s=t]

Albeit, there are connections between the Vatican and the Mafia, e.g. Pope Paul VI & Calvi and Sindona affair (1970s), usury was well in use many centuries before Jesus Christ, while Mafia is a relatively contemporary phenomenon.

According to Michael Hoffman’s book, The Catholic Church began condoning the practice of usury since the Renaissance period -14th—17th century.

Here are some snippets:
Under the escape clause, "Extrinsic titles for legitimate interest” we discover that the dogma prohibiting all interest on debt can be overthrown by the modernist revolutionaries on various mitigating pretexts which had been rejected and condemned by the Church for more than a thousand years, as I demonstrate in my book, Usury in Christendom: The Mortal Sin that Was and Now Is Not.
[…]
The argument of the opposers is that the modernist Church (dating it as I do, from the Renaissance onward), could not possibly have contradicted the True Church, or departed from the magisterial dogma of more than a millennia. In this regard, I say the emperor has no clothes. My opponents respond by proclaiming me an enemy of the Church. Which Church? The True Church or the modern simulacra?
How can anyone who stands for what was taught unambiguously by the Church from its inception until the Renaissance, be an enemy of the Church?

How can someone who denounces and exposes the revolutionary change that was suffused with escape clauses and justified by loopholes which led to the overthrow of magisterial dogma on usury -- be an enemy of the authentic Church of Jesus Christ? [from Debate online over “Usury in Christendom" - http://revisionistreview.blogspot.com.a ... endom.html]

Thus the point I would like to make here is that usury is ancestral with deep roots within our society now, like a cancer and the mechanism that it maintains is the banking system and the criminal elite that is at its helm. Moreover, no true Church, worthy of its name, should ever be associated with it.

Nadir

[jgress]

With all due respect Hoffman isn't a member of our church so let's just focus on what we teach. Usury is a sin but interest is so entrenched in our society that we can't expect the laity to separate itself from it completely. If you have particular concerns bothering your conscience you bring them up with your priest.

I note that in the parable of the talents Christ refers to interest approvingly.

[Maria]

Nadir, these Catholic priests lived in Chicago and were Dominicans. They frequently got these calls.

They were told not to ask questions and not to call the police. Usually the car was outside the rectory within 10 minutes, so the priest barely had time to waken, splash water on his face, dress, and fetch the necessary sick bag containing his stole, etc.

These priests obeyed the caller's instructions because a man's soul was in jeopardy.

[Maria]

With all due respect Hoffman isn't a member of our church so let's just focus on what we teach. Usury is a sin but interest is so entrenched in our society that we can't expect the laity to separate itself from it completely. If you have particular concerns bothering your conscience you bring them up with your priest.

I note that in the parable of the talents Christ refers to interest approvingly.

I recently read one of St. Gregory Palamas' homilies on that parable.
Are we being good stewards or are we wasting what God has given us?
It is not about usury, but all about gratitude to God.

And then on a side note, the word Eucharist comes from the Greek meaning to give thanks.
If we are ungrateful, then we will not appreciate the greatest gift that Christ has given us and our Church: the Holy Eucharist.
If we fail to give thanks in the true meaning of that word, then we will be tossed into hell.