In 1872 the Holy Office, answering a question solemnly put by the
Bishop of Ariano, as solemnly declared that those who take eight
per cent interest per annum are "not to be disquieted"; and in 1873
appeared a book published under authority from the Holy See,
allowing the faithful to take moderate interest under condition
that any future decisions of the Pope should be implicitly obeyed.
Social science as applied to political economy had gained a victory
final and complete. The Torlonia family at Rome to-day, with its
palaces, chapels, intermarriages, affiliations, and papal favour
--all won by lending money at interest, and by liberal gifts, from
the profits of usury, to the Holy See--is but one out of many
growths of its kind on ramparts long since surrendered and
deserted.[[285]]
The dealings of theology with public economy were by no means
confined to the taking of interest for money. It would be
interesting to note the restrictions placed upon commerce by the
Church prohibition of commercial intercourse with infidels, against
which the Republic of Venice fought a good fight; to note how, by
a most curious perversion of Scripture in the Greek Church, many of
the peasantry of Russia were prevented from raising and eating
potatoes; how, in Scotland, at the beginning of this century, the
use of fanning mills for winnowing grain was widely denounced as
contrary to the text, "The wind bloweth where it listeth," etc.
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