Incipit

 

As we ponder Traditionis Custodes, a question should come to mind. Where did the modern rejection of Catholic tradition and doctrine really start? 

I would invite the faithful to look not at the response to Humanae Vitae, nor the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, nor even the Modernist travails of the early 1900s. No, the real answer is something a bit closer to home: our financial portfolios. 

Until recently, I was dimly aware that once upon a time the Church had condemned usury. And, like everyone else, I assumed that said teaching was outdated because the nature of money and economics had fundamentally changed, etc. 

But wait a second. Isn't that the exact same logic and language that is used to justify everything else that is cringeworthy in the modern Church? The world has changed, modern people are different, the Church needs to take a different approach, etc. Name an issue, that's the refrain, as plain and common as "Gather Us In." 

So what's usury? Well, Pope Benedict XIV's papal encyclical Vix Pervenit tells us.

The nature of the sin called usury has its proper place and origin in a loan contract. This financial contract between consenting parties demands, by its very nature, that one return to another only as much as he has received. The sin rests on the fact that sometimes the creditor desires more than he has given. Therefore he contends some gain is owed him beyond that which he loaned, but any gain which exceeds the amount he gave is illicit and usurious.

Clear enough? No? If you're a legalist like me, you probably have the usual modern "what abouts" crowding your mind, so I'll let His Holiness correct us:

One cannot condone the sin of usury by arguing that the gain is not great or excessive, but rather moderate or small; neither can it be condoned by arguing that the borrower is rich; nor even by arguing that the money borrowed is not left idle, but is spent usefully, either to increase one’s fortune, to purchase new estates, or to engage in business transactions. The law governing loans consists necessarily in the equality of what is given and returned; once the equality has been established, whoever demands more than that violates the terms of the loan. Therefore if one receives interest, he must make restitution according to the commutative bond of justice; its function in human contracts is to assure equality for each one. This law is to be observed in a holy manner. If not observed exactly, reparation must be made...

Christian minds should not think that gainful commerce can flourish by usuries or other similar injustices. On the contrary We learn from divine Revelation that justice raises up nations; sin, however, makes nations miserable.

Not exactly a lot of gray area is there? Simply put, a loan contract in which an individual borrower is required to return more than what was loaned, and in which the lender can go after the borrower personally, rather than a piece of property (say, a house or a car), is usurious. And usury is always wrong (yes, even today). 

As this exhaustive FAQ from financially literate Zippy Catholic goes on to explain, usury is wrong because 1) It requires borrowers to pay something for nothing, making it a form of theft, 2) It allows lenders to claim assets (interest on assets loaned) that do not actually exist, 3) It makes individuals into objects by making them, rather than specific property, the object of a loan. 

Vix Pervenit was issued in 1745. If you think the modern Church is weak kneed on contraception, it's positively impotent on usury. A quick search reveals that while recent Popes have occasionally mentioned it in audiences with anti usury groups, Pope Benedict XVI in Caritas in Veritate is the only Pope since Pius XI (back in 1926) to mention it in an encyclical. 

Given what we know about the Church's financial dealings, and the significant percentage of Catholic mutual funds invested in "financial services" companies, it's likely that even faithful Catholic organizations are heavily invested in usurious companies. 

And so are we. We may pride ourselves on making sacrifices to follow Catholic moral teaching. But would we sacrifice our rewards credit cards, largely built on charging usury to the poor? How much of our 401k, Roth, or mutual fund returns come from companies driven by usury? Do we want to find out?

Many complain about the modern Church's refusal to enforce moral truths. But the issues most of us think about only appeared after centuries of wearing away Church teaching on usury. It seems to me, that's the real foundation of the modern derision and indifference toward traditional Church teaching and practice. 

And it's not hard to draw the historical and philosophical connection between tolerance of usury and both modern socialism and crony capitalism, neither of which are friends to tradition. 

So we have an opportunity: an opportunity to restore the Church's moral teaching in our own lives. We also have an opportunity to teach the nonbelievers we know that the Church has a solution to the many economic evils roiling our society, one that steps out of the usual political box that people like to paint around the Church. Let's get started.