Folio 434

Gregory XVI, 1831-1846

printed p. 402 · pdf p. 434

objects that an opinion favorable to such a loan has many patrons, and, moreover, has not been condemned by the Holy See, although more than once consulted about it, then these confessors demand that the penitent promise to conform in filial obedience to the judgment of the Holy Pontiff whatever it may be, if he should intervene; and having obtained this promise, they do not deny them absolution, although they believe an opinion contrary to such a loan is more probable. If a penitent does not confess the gain from money given as a loan, and appears to be in good faith, these confessors, even if they know from other sources that gain of this sort has been taken by him and is even now being taken, they absolve him, making no interrogation about the matter, because they fear that the penitent, being advised to make restitution or to refrain from such profit, will refuse.

1610. Therefore the said Bishop of Rheims inquires:

I. Whether he can approve the method of acting on the part of these latter confessors.

II. Whether he could encourage other more rigid confessors who come to consult him to follow the plan of action of those others until the Holy See brings out an express opinion on this question.

Pius VIII responded: To I: They are not to be disturbed. To II: Provided for in the first.

GREGORY XVI 1831-1846

Usury1

[Declarations about a response of PIUS VIII2]

1611. A. To the doubts of the Bishop of Viviers:3

  1. "Whether the aforesaid judgment of the Most Holy Pontiff must be understood as its words sound, and aside from the title of the law of the prince, about which the Most Eminent Cardinals speak in these responses, so that it is just a matter of a loan made to business men.

  2. "Or whether the title from the law of the prince, about which the Eminent Cardinals speak, must be so understood that it is enough that the law of the prince declares that it is licit for anyone to agree about a gain made from a loan only, as happens in the civil code of the Franks, without saying that it (law of the prince) grants the right to receive such gain."

  1. CL VI 689^cd; MThCc 16, 1073, 1083. ↩

  2. See this response in MThCc 16, 1070, Decr. VIII. ↩

  3. Viviers in France. ↩