Distributive Justice: The Right and Wrong of Our Present Distribution of WealthRyan, John A. (John Augustine)
PhilosophyChristian
Distributive Justice: The Right and Wrong of Our Present Distribution of Wealth
Ryan, John A. (John Augustine)
Economic history; Income distribution -- Moral and ethical aspects; Wealth -- Religious aspects
Nevertheless, the Church has given no positive approval to any of the
foregoing theories. In the last formal pronouncement by a Pope on the
subject, Benedict XIV[136] condemned anew all interest that had no
other support than the intrinsic conditions of the loan itself. At the
same time, he declared that he had no intention of denying the
lawfulness of interest which was received in virtue of the title of
"lucrum cessans," nor the lawfulness of interest or profits arising
out of investments in productive property. In other words, the
authorisation that he gave to both kinds of interest was merely
negative. He refrained from condemning them.
In the Responses given by the Roman Congregations from 1822 onward to
questions relating to the lawfulness of loan-interest, we may
profitably consider four principal features. First, they declare more
or less specifically that interest may be taken in the absence of the
title of "lucrum cessans"; second, some of them definitely admit the
title of "praemium legale," or civil authorisation, as sufficient to
give the practice moral sanction; third, they express a genuine
permission, not a mere toleration, of interest taking; fourth, none of
them explicitly declares that any of the titles or reasons for
receiving loan-interest will necessarily or always give the lender a
_strict right_ thereto. None of them contains a positive and reasoned
approval of the practice. Most of them merely decide that persons who
engage in it are not to be disturbed in conscience, so long as they
stand ready to submit to a formal decision on the subject by the Holy
See. The insertion of the latter condition clearly intimates that some
day interest taking might be formally and officially condemned.
Should such a condemnation ever appear, it would not contradict any
moral principle contained in the "Roman Responses," nor in the present
attitude of the Church and of Catholic moralists. Undoubtedly it could
come only as the result of a change in the organisation of industry,
just as the existing ecclesiastical attitude has followed the changed
economic conditions since the Middle Ages.
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