I know that usury was traditionally considered an execrable mortal sin.
Who the heck are you to be lecturing us all on usury, anyway?.
Isn’t the government the biggest violator of them all?.
Haven’t commerce and currency changed in such a way that usury is no longer much of a concern?.
Aren’t all unproductive loans usury? Wasn’t Belloc right when he said that the distinction between usurious and non-usurious loans was that the latter are productive?.
What is wrong with contracts between consenting adults?.
Does this mean that I can’t take out a student loan without committing mortal sin?.
Traditionalist scholastics claimed that you can’t sell risk progressive scholastics asserted that an insurance bond is a counterexample.
Traditionalist scholastics claimed that you can’t sell time progressive scholastics asserted that the worker’s wages are a counterexample.
Doesn’t the future labor of a worker constitute a ‘real asset’ against which a loan can be collateralized?.
Shouldn’t an investor be compensated for giving up the opportunity cost of investing his money in something else?.
Hasn’t the Church approved charging interest to recover opportunity costs? What about the time value of money?.
Didn’t the Church allow the Franciscans to collect “interest” above and beyond the principal on their mutuum loans to the poor? What about “extrinsic titles?”.
Why would I ever lend someone money if I can’t charge interest?.
Aren’t lots of non-mutuum contracts unjust?.
What if the loan is secured by collateral?.
But economic value is relative, isn’t it? Isn’t value reducible to whatever people’s preferences happen to be?.
Why is charging interest on a loan always morally wrong?
What if the borrower is an institution like a government or corporation rather than an individual?.
What is the key difference between a mutuum and other contracts?.
What if the interest rate is reasonable?.
This FAQ is intended to help people understand what usury is – and is not – and answer many of the questions which naturally arise. Usurious contracts constitute a kind of contract which is intrinsically immoral by its very nature. Usury is not a matter of the same kind of contract differing only by ‘excessive interest’. Understanding usury requires an understanding of how the nature of some contracts differs, fundamentally and categorically, from the nature of others. How false is this opinion and how far removed from the truth! We can easily understand this if we consider that the nature of one contract differs from the nature of another. We exhort you not to listen to those who say that today the issue of usury is present in name only, since gain is almost always obtained from money given to another.