August 7 -- Feast of Saint Cajetan

Loan-sharking is bad, mmkay?

Okay, it is probably unjust to put up a picture of Mr. Mackey instead of Tommaso de Vio Gaetano, also known as Saint Cajetan. He was a very earnest priest who did some pretty cool stuff. Born into a well-connected family, he was on track to hold some really lucrative offices when instead he joined the Oratory of Saint Jerome, an order that attracted brothers from the lower classes and provided care for the very lowest of the low. Challenged by family and friends that he had betrayed them, he replied that he found God in the faces of the incurable for whom he cared in hospitals.

What, you may ask, does this have to do with loan-sharking? After founding a new order of priests, living by the Augustinian Rule (ball-bustingly severe) and working to cleanse the clergy of its corruption, he took on the usurers.

Usury is a thorny issue, mixed up as it is with the history of anti-Semitism. Luke's Gospel (19:23) says that Jesus taught that one should "love your enemies, and do good and lend, hoping for nothing again." Does that forbid lending for profit? Well, the medieval and Renaissance Church thought so. But as we know, it is tough to build a thriving economy without credit, so it naturally fell to the Jews to lend money. No one else was incentivized to do so, after all.

Without dwelling on the persecution of Jewish moneylenders, punished for enforcing the contracts into which borrowers voluntarily entered, let me say that Cajetan's solution to the problem was novel and peaceful. He established montes pietatis, "benevolent pawnshops," where the needy could borrow against property. The initial idea was that only the most needy could borrow, generally only for brief terms, and for very low rates. Yes, interest was permissible, as long as it did not become profit, but was instead used as a hedge against defaults and a support for further loans.

Gambling is good, mmkay?

But only when one gambles prayers, or in heavier bets rosaries and devotional candles, against services. Cajetan was fond of betting that he would do something for someone; if the person taking the bet lost, he would have to pay the appropriate prayers. Cajetan, of course, never lost.