In the face of scores of
explicit deliverances and decrees of fathers, doctors, popes, and
councils against the taking of any interest whatever for money, he
coolly pretended that what they had declared against was
_exorbitant_ interest. He made a merit of the action of the Church,
and showed that its course had been a blessing to humanity. But his
masterpiece is in dealing with the edicts of Clement V and Benedict
XIV. As to the first, it will be remembered that Clement, in accord
with the Council of Vienne, had declared that "any one who shall
pertinaciously presume to affirm that the taking of interest for
money is not a sin, we decree him to be a heiretic fit for
punishment," and we have seen that Benedict XIV did not at all
deviate from the doctrines of his predecessors. Yet Mastrofini is
equal to his task, and brings out, as the conclusion of his book,
the statement put upon his title-page, that what the Church
condemns is only _exorbitant_ interest.
This work was sanctioned by various high ecclesiastical dignitaries,
and served its purpose; for it covered the retreat of the Church.
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