These explanations were wonderfully
ingenious, but many of the older churchmen continued to insist upon
the orthodox view, and at last the Pope himself intervened.
Fortunately for the world, the seat of St. Peter was then occupied
by Benedict XIV, certainly one of the most gifted, morally and
intellectually, in the whole line of Roman pontiffs. Tolerant and
sympathetic for the oppressed, he saw the necessity of taking up
the question, and he grappled with it effectually: he rendered to
Catholicism a service like that which Calvin had rendered to
Protestantism, by shrewdly cutting a way through the theological
barrier. In 1745 he issued his encyclical _Vix pervenit_, which
declared that the doctrine of the Church remained consistent with
itself; that usury is indeed a sin, and that it consists in
_demanding any amount beyond the exact amount lent_, but that there
are occasions when on special grounds the lender may obtain such
additional sum.
What these "occasions" and "special grounds" might be, was left
very vague; but this action was sufficient.
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