Usury and Interest: Forgotten Contributions to the Thomistic Tradition

Abstract

There has been a recent increase in Catholic authors concerned about usury. However, these authors generally misunderstand later Thomistic teaching on this subject. This article uses the writings of Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Cardinal Juan de Lugo, and Cardinal Jozef-Ernest van Roey to explain how later Thomists approach extrinsic titles (particularly lucrum cessans) and explain how this tradition was able to develop Aquinas’s usury theory in a way that allowed a universal right to charge interest on a loan given the proper intention. Finally, it deals with several recent objections to this and finds them lacking.

Matthew J. Advent, "Usury and Interest: Forgotten Contributions to the Thomistic Tradition," Journal of Markets & Morality 27, no. 1 (2024): 7-30.