In a 34 minute 50 second radio interview with Catholic author E. Michael Jones conducted by American Free Press editor Mark Anderson, at a point 31 minutes and ten seconds into the broadcast: Mr. Anderson says to Dr. Jones: "As Michael Hoffman has noted too, for so long usury was illegal, a sin, a disgrace —"
(Jones interrupts Anderson): "First of all it has never ceased being a sin. The Catholic Church has never declared that usury is not sinful. It's still a sin. It's a mistake to think that the Church has changed its teaching on usury. That is not the case."
Anderson: "Yeah, maybe they don't emphasize it like they should."
Jones: "Of course they don't emphasize it, but it is still the teaching of the Church. Vix Pervenit is an infallible encyclical of the Catholic Church. That is the Church teaching, so we need to lay this illusion to rest."
Michael Hoffman replies:
I have not been asked to respond to Dr. Jones by Mr. Anderson, but I will do so here, as follows:
If the Catholic Church considers usury still a mortal sin, as E. Michael Jones alleges, why does no usurer have to confess his or her sin and receive absolution before attending Holy Communion?
Since 1830, under the pontificate of Pius VIII (and all subsequent popes), mortally sinful, unrepentant usurers have been admitted to reception of the Holy Eucharist without having confessed or been absolved.
In Vix Pervenit (1745) Benedict XIV expanded Leo X’s "infallible" 1515 Bulla Concilii in decima sessione super materia Montis Pietati, promulgating the lawfulness of charging interest for philanthropic ends, to include the lawfulness of interest on investment credit capital. While Vix Pervenit is often cited, by the semi-literate, as a reaffirmation of the magisterial pre-Renaissance dogma on usury, such claims represent an intellectually lazy failure to note and comprehend Vix Pervenit’s “fine print.” After many anti-usury rhetorical flourishes throughout the document, the technique of the devolutionary degradation of God’s law through gradualism was deployed with the following subtle papal statement:
“We do not deny that at times together with the loan contract certain other titles — which are not intrinsic to the contract — may run parallel with it. From these other titles, entirely just and legitimate reasons arise to demand something over and above the amount due on the contract.”The papal usurers apply rabbinic-style loopholes to sneak their usury past the eyes of gullible Catholics who have a psychological need to believe that the Renaissance and post-Renaissance Church of Rome did not overthrow the dogma of the True Church. Vix Pervenit consists of 98% anti-usury rhetoric and 2% loopholes by which usury could continue to operate. Note that in Vix Pervenit Benedict XIV declined to apply the general prohibition to the specific usury contracts which gave rise for the need for his encyclical in the first place.
Jones accepts Vix Pervenit at face value, even though Vix Pervenit is a textbook example of Vatican dissimulation and misdirection, very much in the tenor of the current Pope Francis's undoubtedly eloquent jeremiads against avarice and obsessive pursuit of economic affluence to the detriment of family values. Exceedingly naive people believe that this sort of oratory signifies something. But Jesus Christ said By their fruits ye shall know them, not by their palaver.
Res ipsa loquitor - the facts speak for themselves - usury, both from inside the papacy and among Catholics in general, has grown exponentially, largely unimpeded, from Leo X in 1515, through Benedict XIV in 1745, Pius VIII in 1830, Benedict XV in 1917, John Paul II in 1983, up to the present time of Benedict XVI and now Francis. In the midst of all of these pontificates no other pope restored the mortal sinfulness of usury, or declared that all interest on loans of money must cease immediately, on pain of eternal damantion.
Vix Pervenit was by no means the last word of the post-Renaissance Church on usury. Dr. Jones should explain to his audience the Catholic Code of Canon Law of 1917, which approved interest on loans. One definition of usury is the charging of a profit on a loan of a consumable fungible good. The 1917 Code of Canon Law declares, “...in the loan of a fungible thing, it is not by itself illicit to reap a legal profit..."
No change, Dr. Jones?
The Catholic Code of Canon Law of 1983 actually requires clerics in charge of church funds to obtain interest on money, and a usury bank, the IOR (Istituto per le Opere di Religione), has operated for decades in Vatican City, under papal auspices.
No change, Dr. Jones?
When the new Pope Francis inveighs against economic predation and injustice while continuing the nearly 500 year revolutionary practice of the Church of Rome to incrementally permit the mortal sin of usury, the pontiff is only ensuring that it will continue. His deceptive rhetoric functions as a disguise, to mask the reality of the overthrow of the dogma of usury's mortal sinfulness by the Church of Rome.
By the 19th and 20th centuries many Catholics had been sufficiently alchemically processed that most failed to protest the fact that usury was by then no longer a mortal sin. The absolute proof for this fact is that the obligation to confess and be absolved of the sin of charging interest on loans was quietly lifted with papal permission, beginning in 1830, after which the "teaching of the Catholic Church," i.e. the Canon Law, declared that interest on a loan is lawful if not "immoderate." Finally, in 1983, the Canon Law mandated that clerics were to be sure to obtain interest on eclesiastical monies.
Denying these facts does nothing to advance the the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the True Church of All Time. The Church of Jesus Christ is based on Truth and formed by believers possessed of the vision and courage to proclaim that Truth, however much it dismays true believers in modernist religious rackets put forth by pious mountebanks.
Many of us learned this harsh truth long ago with regard to the betrayals by popes such as Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. The notion that this subversive papal phenomenon is almost exclusively limited to the era of the 20th and 21st centuries has masterfully succeeded in concealing the root of the situation ethics that produced Vatican Council II's Nostra Aetate, and post-conciliar betrayals and subversion. Situation ethics began to rule the Church of Rome five centuries ago, not 50 years ago. Until Catholics learn this historical fact they will not be able to overcome the enemies of God and will continue to be misdirected into impotent activism based on half truths. My book on usury is intended to spark the beginning of a process of historical investigation of the authentic root of the diabolical financial arcana that gave rise to situation ethics within the papacy. It is tragic that at five minutes to midnight on the clock of destiny, prominent Catholics continue to seek to interdict an investigation of the trail of the Money Power’s usurpation of the papacy, by expecting us to submit to their childish belief in the credibility of Vatican doubletalk.
The only way my facts can be successfully countered is by the familiar under-handed tactics of silence and suppression. My opponents have no other answer to my research. My thanks to Mr. Anderson of the American Free Press for mentioning my thesis to Dr. Jones on the air, and to First Amendment Books for selling copies of my book to readers of the American Free Press newspaper. These are two tiny candles in a cavern of darkness — but who knows — perhaps they will yet ignite a flame of inquiry that cannot be extinguished.
Mark L. of North Carolina writes: "The only illusion that Jones is creating here is one of his own making. The evidence you supply in Usury in Christendom is overwhelming and short of discrediting the source material, will stand."
That may be true, but some people’s minds will never be changed. One can give proof and people are not persuaded because their biases are so intense. The more proof Jesus gave to the Jews of who He was, the more intensely they hated him. The human heart by nature is hostile to truth.
For further research:
E. Michael Jones interviewed by Mark Anderson online concerning Michael Hoffman (segment begins at 31 minutes, ten seconds into the approximately 35 minute broadcast):
Michael Hoffman Talks About Usury (approx. 33 minutes)
This talk was banned by YouTube on Aug. 26, 2019 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT0grvk16NI
Michael Hoffman is the author of Usury in Christendom: The Mortal Sin that Was and Now is Nots), has been endorsed by Rev. Fr. Christopher Hunter, pastor of St. Therese Roman Catholic Chapel in Klamath Falls, Oregon; and by eminent anti-usury campaigners Anthony Migchels and Daniel Krynicki, as well as Amazon reader-reviewers.
Usury in Christendom is blacklisted and boycotted by the overwhelming majority of Catholic leaders, publications and organizations, whether liberal, conservative or “traditional." "Catholic Social Teaching” and “distributist” conferences and gatherings have declined to feature Mr. Hoffman as either a speaker, debater or participant.
Usury in Christendom is blacklisted and boycotted by the overwhelming majority of Catholic leaders, publications and organizations, whether liberal, conservative or “traditional." "Catholic Social Teaching” and “distributist” conferences and gatherings have declined to feature Mr. Hoffman as either a speaker, debater or participant.
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Posts
13 comments:
From Frank from NJ,
I read your book on usury and I also listened to Jones' whole radio broadcast from AFP. For Jones to agree with you Mr. Hoffman, he will have to repudiate the Popes and the infallibility of the Catholic Church. He's not about to go there. Putting that aside I can't wait for his book to come out. I read his magazine and buy his e-books on a regular basis. He is a great writer and brings out insights that I can find no where else unless I come here to this site. I would like to see you two have a peace conference and end the back and forth that has been going forth since the bad review of your book on Judaism. I ask myself how can a man with so much insight fail to see the facts about usury as put forth in Mr. Hoffman's book? It's beyond me and I don't dwell on it because I get very discouraged. In fact reading this post has really done me in. There is no unity anywhere. Frank from NJ
To Frank
(PART ONE)
This is a question of history and facts. No other consideration engages me.
Fact: usurpers do not constitute the True Catholic Church.
Fact: The Catholic Church exists where there is adherence to truth.
Fact: From the Renaissance onward an occupying Money Power seized the papacy; that power's hold has been demonstrated by the fact that all the flowery verbiage of all the subsequent popes never did not result in the restoration of the pre-Renaissance dogma of the True Catholic Church on interest on loans of money.
Fact: To cite Vix Pervenit as evidence of a restoration or affirmation is to be seduced by the platitudinous rubbish which Benedict XIV uttered on his path to further extending permission for more usury, through the construction of thoroughly wicked, rabbinic-style loopholes on the incremental road to the complete ecclesiastical legalization of usury which we have in our time. Vix Pervenit is one among many post-Renaisance papal paving stones on that highway to hell.
How theTruth about incremental papal permission for the mortal sin of usury has an impact on the 1870 Vatican I concept of papal “infallibility” is no concern of mine. Where there is Truth there is Jesus Christ. This is the warrant for my research. Anyone who places the reputation of the Renaissance and post-Renaissance Church of Rome above the Truth of Jesus Christ is no friend of God.
I am not a modern person. I am not an equivocator or situation ethicist. My mentality is medieval Catholic as it existed before Rome was captured by the very first modernists. I expect few people alive today will comprehend a truly Catholic (medieval) mentality because it has been almost (but not quite) completely extirpated by the depraved Neoplatonists who have occupied the Vatican since 1515. They have for nearly five centuries manipulated minds and corroded the human spirit with the alchemical processing for which they are justly infamous.
In Revisionist History no. 67 I will be taking readers on a visual tour of the True Catholic mentality as it is on display in the Arena Chapel.
Let those who have the mind of the True Church by the grace of God, understand the Catholic dogma intrinsic to the unadulterated Catholic vision consists in the juxtaposition of paired antithetical spirits which contrast, in high relief, clearly distinguished categories of good and evil.
There are good popes and evil popes and by evil we do not denote only personally immoral popes guilty of sins of the flesh, but revolutionaries who submitted, over the past 498 years, to the overthrow of the infallible dogma they were consecrated to safeguard.
(Continued in PART TWO below:)
PART TWO (continued from Part One above)
To the many persons who these truths offend, we remind them that Jesus said He would that we were hot or cold, otherwise He would spew us out of His mouth.
We have experienced setback after setback in restoring the Kingship of Christ because our thinking is gravely disordered and confused.
One cannot have usury and the True Catholic Church.
In the True Church of Jesus Christ all who take interest on loans of money must repent this mortal sin, confess, be absolved and make reparation. Where that process is in place there is the Church. Let us not lie and deceive ourselves and others by calling a usury church such as exists in Rome, the Catholic Church.
The denizens of contemporary Rome permit, enhance and extend usury in practice while condemning it in theory. This is double-minded Satanic hypocrisy.
Modernist Catholics who think they are traditional and make excuses for papal usury are attacking me from every vantage. This is all to the good -- as long as it is not done in the dark. Mark Anderson, with one question on the radio, helped to bring darkness into the light.
The post-Renaissance papal surrender to Mammon cannot tolerate the light and the more my book is discussed and debated by people imbued with the Spirit of Christ’s Truth, the more it will be clear that we cannot serve both God and mammon.
If modernist idolaters of the post-Renassance Roman simulacra of the True Church want to proclaim me outside that Church, or an enemy of it, they stand exposed as putting their allegiance to the same serpent who seduced our first parents.
I am in this for life or death and at all costs. I will not be silenced!
Under the patronage of the scourge of usurers, Saint Anthony of Padua,
—MICHAEL HOFFMAN
Frank from NJ
Thank you Mr. Hoffman for your stand for the truth of Christ. When the wolf comes the Good Shepard will lay down his life for the sheep but when the hireling sees the wolf coming he runs away and lets the sheep get devoured. Thank you for being a good Shepard. Paul said many will depart from the faith giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. Usury is a doctrine of the devil.
This is where we are now...the great apostasy of the church. If you haven't already bought your copy of Mr. Hoffman's book on Usury now is the time to get a real education on the reason the church is in the states it's in.
To Frank
Thank you for your decency and kind works.
-Michael Hoffman
'How the Truth about incremental papal permission for the mortal sin of usury has an impact on the 1870 Vatican I concept of papal “infallibility” is no concern of mine.' Ok. But in the minds those who enjoyed much closer proximity to that mediaeval Catholic mentality than we wretches living now in post-Christendom times (though we ought to aspire to it!), the notion of Roma Locuta Est – Causa Finita Est seems to have been well established. For of all those great and noble Dominicans (excepting Savonarola, but including the Superior-General) who condemned the Montes as usurious and termed them 'Montes impietatis' before the 5th Lateran Council and also the only bishop who spoke against them at the Council, which of these personages dared to condemn Papa Medici's Bull 'Inter Multiplicis'? None! The entire Western Patriarchate embraced it as Apostolic teaching--including, as you know, latter anti-usury-as-initially-excused-by -nominalist-means ('the upholders of Catholic culture at the folk level') clergymen that you yourself rightly lionize. Perhaps to some extent the mediaeval Catholic mentality contained the seeds of its own destruction. Perhaps we have all been framed from the beginning. (Also 'infallibly' condemned by Leo X: 'That heretics be burned is against the will of the spirit.') May the prayers of St Anthony of Padua give you joy Michael Anthony and preserve the law of God in your heart till the Master comes and thus know joys everlasting. --Justin
To Justin
Justin wrote:
“”...in the minds (of) those who enjoyed much closer proximity to that mediaeval Catholic mentality than we wretches living now in post-Christendom times (though we ought to aspire to it!), the notion of Roma Locuta Est – Causa Finita Est seems to have been well established. For of all those great and noble Dominicans (excepting Savonarola, but including the Superior-General) who condemned the Montes as usurious and termed them 'Montes impietatis' before the 5th Lateran Council and also the only bishop who spoke against them at the Council, which of these personages dared to condemn Papa Medici's Bull 'Inter Multiplicis'? None! The entire Western Patriarchate embraced it as Apostolic teaching--including, as you know, latter anti-usury-as-initially-excused-by -nominalist-means ('the upholders of Catholic culture at the folk level') clergymen that you yourself rightly lionize. Perhaps to some extent the mediaeval Catholic mentality contained the seeds of its own destruction."
Actually you seem to put a modern spin on the medievals - you are assuming that they believed that a pope could innovate and overthrow a portion of the Deposit of Faith, and because “Rome has spoken” the matter would be closed.
Dante was a medieval Catholic and he only believed that Rome had “Locuta" (spoken authoritatively) when the pope guarded what had been handed down to him and transmitted it to his successors. Revolutionary popes were Judases and Dante knew how his friend Giotto portrayed a Judas.
Dante put three popes in Hell (four if you count Outer-Hell) and not a single pope did he place in Heaven, save St. Peter himself. Dante pretty much pioneered sedevacantism with his attitude toward Boniface VIII.
With prelates and superiors it was different. The Athanasiuses and Marcel Lefebvres were mostly weeded out before they ever got into the hierarchy or ranked Superior General of an order. There were still some holy men at the top, but then as now their obedience trumped their conscience and Holy Scripture.
I don’t mean to imply that Dante was himself infallible. Poet’s license and all that. He was however, a paragon of what it means to be medieval, and very much among the camp of those who had, on occasion, reason to say, “causa infinita est."
Your accusation that I am making such an assumption, I contend, is not quite as flawless as Giotto's O. (Forgive me, couldn't help myself.) Though you are quite right to distinguish Dante as paragon of Mediaeval thought. For he certainly is. And not only in his poetic 'Divine Comedy' but also in his marvelous treatise 'De Monarchia', which contains patristic doctrines regarding legitimate civil power that have likewise been subverted by not only concordant(both de jure and de facto)-making-with-pharaonic-apostate-powers post-Renaissance Pontiffs, but those of his own time--and those of slightly more than a few generations before. My query, or rather stumbling block is this: If 'Inter multiplices' is contrary to the Catholic faith, why in the past half millennium has there been a not a Dante saying so? (Or anyone.) Why, from Cardinal Cætano and other more lowly friars who after 1515 never more argued against them (as far as we know) till Michael Hoffman, has none condemned the montes which took a fee to secure the pawn (but which fee, it was argued, had nothing to do with the mutuum qua mutuum) as usurious?
I whole heartily embrace your usury opus with the exception of your treatment of the Montes. (And the omission of the fact that Aquinas disagrees with Alexander III etc. (page 140 for example) as he argues that it is lawful to make use of another's sin for a good end ( 2, II, Q. 78, A. 4 ), and that Pius VII's portrait was used on page 383 instead of that of the intended Pius VIII) For example, Carol B. Menning on page 150 is cited as disclosing that the monte 'could sell unredeemed pawns at a profit'--though this very well may have happened such a practice was actually illegal as the montes were compelled by their own charters to turn the surplus (minus the value of the mutuum plus the fee--in the form of interest-- for the safekeeping of the pawn) from the sell over to the owner. (I.e., they were not your typical pawnbrokers--at least theoretically.)
When I wrote 'Apostolic' I meant just that. Not assuming that the word must needs be filtered through some contemporary understanding of the 'Development of Dogma' which renders the Holy Fathers of the Church veritable catechetical babies who possessed a very inadequate comprehension of the Deposit of Faith compared to us enlightened moderns with our Baltimore Catechisms, Rosaries and latter-day unerring potentates enthroned on Vatican Hill. As if Christianity is made more explicit for each successive generation (or epoch) since Pentecost! I certainly do not contend that Christendom during its mediaeval flowering ever adhered to such a fanciful notion that 'a pope could innovate and overthrow [or improve upon] a portion of the Deposit of Faith.' Nor do I adhere to such an idolatrous notion today. But either the erstwhile opponents of the montes on the grounds that they were usurious did after 1515; or they came to believe that their former opinions on the matter were erroneous; or they were cowards; or perhaps they remained silent to avoid scandal or disturbance: 'If a man . . . take away thy coat, let go thy cloak also unto him; and whosoever will force thee one mile, go with him other two.' Thank you for your indulgence--Justin
Dear Mr. Hoffman,
I think you've studied Talmudic Judaism so much that you're reaction to doctrinal development is equivalent to the Pharisees reaction to Our Lord's changes to the Mosaic covenant. Development is change, however gradual. Money and its uses have changed over time. One can lament these changes, yet they exist. Markets have been built upon these changes, and money has become more than a medium of exchange. To fix upon a particular passage and point to its "guilt" in opening the
door to usury (by blaming external banking forces for meddling with, or corrupting, "immutable" theology) would be the equivalent of asserting that embalming and funeral home lobbyists of the past were responsible for the Church's prohibitions against cremation. I can assure you that the Church's changes (i.e., developments) to the doctrine and nature of prevenient grace well over a thousand years ago were far more seismic than any changes you might find so horrifying and abhorrent pertaining to the Church's position on money. Do you feel that Our Lord's ministry on earth was tainted because he did not expel Judas from the twelve? I ask because your demand that The Pope close the Vatican Bank in order to achieve your version of a "pure Church" is infantile. Why not demand that Bishop Williamson return his benefactors' money to ensure the "purity" of his version of Catholicism?
To David
You write: "Development is change, however gradual. Money and its uses have changed over time.”
This is modernism. This is situation ethics.
Money can never be allowed to breed money. It is a monster of sterility brought on by man’s love of money - the root of all evil. From this sterility arises sodomy, contraception, abortion and the diabolically disoriented world we have today. Dante made the connection 700 years ago. Too bad we are so blind.
That's a pretty lame show by Collins, a man who has many worthwhile things to say.
A kneejerk defense of the Church in the face of the facts is not too sly.
More power to you Mr. Hoffman.
Talking about the "love of money", it seems that a sedevacantist that has never read anything from you see things the way you do:
http://thelaypulpit.blogspot.com.es/2013/11/why-stop-at-paver-stones.html
To see the point, one must read the whole post.
Thank you for your work, Michael. If it weren't for it, I'd never have been able to see through the mist.
May God bless you and all your family.
Mr Hoffman, have you heard of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima? She predicted the apostasy of the roman curia 100 years from now. She predicted the liturgical reforms of the apostate and communist amd heretic Paul VI. Our Lady in La Salette 70 years prior predicted that Rome would lose the faith and become the see of the antichrist. Our lady in Ecuador in the 1600's predicted that the 20th century would be one ruled by secret societies. Our lady of Fátima performed a supernatural miracle (not preternatural as demons can perform) that was testified by 70.000 people and a masonic newspaper even reported it. I believe a proper restoration of a moral order in the world will have to begin by a restoration of thr liturgy, and protestants will have to return to the sacraments. The fathers of the Church held the sacraments as central much before the time of pope Leo X and the error of the papacy. I believe Jones is suffers from Papolatry, which blinds him even to the fact of the liturgical chaos brought about by that evil council.. but you'll have to study in detail the dogma of papal infallibility. For it is a fine line which separates a statement solemly declared as infallible, from other succeptible to error. Popes have failed before, and ignorance rather than malice (the devil uses both to his advantage) must have been the cause for which usury entered to corrupt all. Saint Thomas says that evil comes not under the appearence of evil but rather under a apparent good, that's why i play the devil's advocate. But i think you fail to understand the Telos of history, because you (and the isms of the XIX and XX century) suffer from immanentism. That term comes from Hegel, and was previously treated by Saint Augustine in the city of God. Salvation will not come by works and deed but by gratias gratis datas. Grace is an inmerited gift. The mystical body of Christ will have to be betrayed and crucified. If we fail to believe that we'll always be haunted by why don't we succeed. Saint Augustine argumented that Rome did not fall because of the conversion to Christianity. The city that the saint mentions is spiritual. Earthly thing (necessary, but rather useless to understand escathology) are for the other city, the city of men, that is material, where people lust for the domination of others. Protestantism, and calvinism in particular, suffer from the retributive error. God does not blesses you by retributing material wealth. Being succesful doesn't equals being more blessed. We mr. Hoffman are in the last times. I say it not by me but after reading much of the catholic mystics from the last two centuries. Mr.Hoffman, is always a pleasure reading your work. I side with you on this. God bless you.
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