Listen now to today's Hoffman call-in radio interview

My interview by journalist Mark Anderson on his call-in radio program has been archived and is available for listening online free of charge, as a public service. The program is approximately two hours in duration. It is centered on a discussion of the book, Usury in Christendom: The Mortal Sin that Was and Now is Not.

Saying the broadcast is "free of charge" is somewhat misleading in that my appearance on the program was made possible by donations from truth-seekers whose gifts fund our research and public activism. Without those donations I could not afford to take two hours to speak on a workday morning analyzing the revolutionary history of how the just relations among human beings that Jesus Christ instituted have been sacrificed on the altar of avarice and situation ethics.

Click on the link to listen:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/americanfreepress/2013/08/26/beyond-exposure

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Michael Hoffman on the radio Monday Aug. 26 talking about Usury in Christendom

Radio program: Hoffman to discuss Usury 

Your editor will be discussing the thesis of his book Usury in Christendom: The Mortal Sin that Was and Now is Not, on the American Free Press radio network beginning at 10 a.m eastern time, on Monday, August 26.

The program is hosted by  journalist Mark Anderson.

The show will be heard online at this link:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/americanfreepress

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Questions for Hoffman concerning his book about usury

Questions on Usury

From D.L., Omaha, Nebraska:

Michael,

I have just completed reading your excellent book Usury in Christendom: The Mortal Sin that Was and Now is Not, and am re-reading and researching various sections for further clarity. Here are questions and comments which I hope you can assist me with in whatever spare time may allow.

1. If the popes from 1515 were manifest heretics on the issue of allowing, condoning and promoting the practice of usury in any form whatsoever, from the standpoint of it being mortally sinful, then the Catholic Church was absent of s valid papacy all these centuries.  Exceptions most likely, would be popes who served brief reigns e.g.: Adrian VI, Marcellus II, Urban VII, Innocent IX and Leo XI.

2. Pius VIII served only 20 months and near the end of his office was troubled by revolutionary activities in France and Italy.  Could these events have led to a hasty and not well thought out decision given to the Bishop of Rheims?  Perhaps those advisors in the Curia advised him falsely, and through ignorance and bad trust/judgment he sinned lacking due diligence, but not by way of heresy?

3. Do you see exceptions of heresy with regard to Pius VI and Pius X?  The Church cannot err in Canonizations which would violate Her principle of Indefectibility.

4. Trent and Vatican I would have been promulgated by two antipopes, Pius V and Pius IX.  Do you see these councils partially or entirely illegitimate?

Thank you.

Dear Mr. L:

I write history. I am not a theologian, nor do I contemplate the theological consequences of my historical research, which is based solely on the pursuit of truth wherever it leads, on the basis that where there is truth there is Jesus Christ. If my book Usury in Christendom is true, then it is of Christ.

Remaining faithful to the True Church of All Time, the ecclesia of SS. Basil, Chrysostom, Aquinas, Anthony of Padua, King Edward the Confessor, Pope Innocent IV, etc., does not make one a traitor. Treason to traitors is no treason. The Catholic Church cannot nullify sacred dogma, or betray Christ, but rather, the post-Renaissance Church of Rome, or "newchurch," as some term it, appears to have done so. The bane of Christian society is their situation ethics, their substitution of human financial standards relative to the circumstances and context of the times, for immutable divine law against interest on loans. No pope after Leo X reversed the tide of usury in the Church. Even the famous "Vix Pervenit" of Benedict XIV consisted of toothless semantics. It had no provision for enforcement. Usury among Catholics flourished in the wake of it.

Any pope after Leo X had the power to enforce the immemorial Catholic dogma on what usury is and the mortal sinfulness of it. Any pope after Leo could have promulgated the following as law, as it had been law for fifteen hundred years: 

"All interest on loans of money is a grave transgression against the law of God. In order to obtain absolution, reception of the Eucharist and a Catholic burial, all usurers must confess their mortal sin, avoid the near occasion of sin by halting their involvement in usurious trade and operations, and make restitution for the interest they took. Practicing usurers are not to receive the Eucharist and are to be refused a Catholic burial. In Catholic nations, the civil authorities are urged to seize the assets of usurers after death to repay interest to debtors. Obstinate usurers are excommunicated." -Pontifex Maximus.

No such statement (or anything approximating it), has ever been issued in the past 498 years by any pope since a form of usurious operation was incrementally empowered by Medici Pope Leo X's Bull Inter multiplices of May, 1515.

Ergo, despite whatever pious, nostalgic or sentimental feelings one may have for any pope from Leo X onward, it grieves me to say that whatever good those popes may have done cannot override their condonation of the worst of all sins. By their papal permission (by silence, inaction, apathy or active conspiracy) for the love of money that is usury --said love being, according to the Gospel the root of all evil (as it is, by its sterility and the plague of situation ethics that must accompany it in order to justify it) they acted as wolves, not shepherds . We cannot say "he was a good pope but he permitted adultery. He was a good pope but he permitted idolatry. He was a good pope but he allowed for robbery." Any permission for any one of those grave sins renders the pope involved a devil in the shape of a pontiff, and this is true of permission for the root of all evil, the love of money, which is what very obviously motivated the Church of Rome in letting the Catholic usurers ply their trade.

Moreover, in the wake of the exposure of the child molestation rings in the Catholic hierarchy, which predate Vatican II, we must wonder about the extent to which even supposed "hero" popes of the past may have shielded malefactors by means of the terrible secrecy in which the Vatican bureaucracy and curia have dwelled these many centuries. Many questions are now being raised of the extent of sodomy in the hierarchy of Rome long before Vatican II. The true history of the papacy from the Renaissance onward, has yet to be written.

As for Pius X, recall that the Code of Canon Law of 1917, which permitted usury, though promulgated by Benedict XV, was largely composed during Pope Pius X's papacy.

As for the infallibility of canonizations, I wonder. Alphonsus Liguori argued for the rights of those who charge interest on loans, and advocated a most devious form of lying, and he is esteemed by "traditionalists" as one of the most eminent and holy of all Catholic saints.

The winds of truth are only beginning to blow through the Church of Rome. Let us hope that the sum effect is more than the Cryptocracy's notorious Revelation of the Method.

Yours truly,

Michael Hoffman

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Hoffman’s book on usury reviewed in “Culture Wars” magazine

The July-August issue of Culture Wars, a Catholic magazine published by E. Michael Jones, PhD., has an extensive review of Michael Hoffman's book, Usury in Christendom: The Mortal Sin that Was and Now is Not.

The review, titled "Has the Catholic Church Changed Her Teaching on Usury?" is authored by Anthony Santelli, PhD., a fomer professor at George Mason University and the founder and hedgefund manager of AES Capital.

The 19-page review is on pp. 30-49 of the July-August issue. A pdf. of the issue  may be purchased online for $4.00 at this link: http://www.culturewars.com/  (Look for the "Buy Now" button highlighted in yellow).

Michael Hoffman has submitted a 2300-word letter to the editor of Culture Wars in reply to the main points of contention in Dr. Santelli's review.

"I will not release my letter in advance of Dr. Jones publishing it, unless it is heavily redacted or refused publication," Hoffman said.

Hoffman's book may be purchased here:
http://revisionisthistorystore.blogspot.com/2010/03/michael-hoffmans-online-revisionist.html

A YouTube video of Hoffman talking about the Money Power is available here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT0grvk16NI

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More chicanery at the usurious Vatican Bank

We continue to come under attack from Catholics who deny the undeniable: that the post-Renaissance Church of Rome legalized the mortal sin of usury. The latest attack and my response are here.

On the credit side of the ledger, First Amendment Books, a division of the American Free Press newspaper in Washington DC is selling Usury in Christendom: The Mortal Sin that Was and Now is Not. Mark Anderson, the paper's roving reporter, has promised to invite us on his radio program to discuss papal documents such as the encyclical Vix Pervenit, cited by our opponents as an allegedly unambiguous blow to usury and a papal reaffirmation of the ancient dogmas.

In truth, Pope Benedict XIV's encyclical has a loophole permitting usury big enough to drive a Mack truck through. Vix Pervenit is a masterpiece of Vatican doubletalk: 98% eloquent fulminations against usury and then an escape clause permitting it. Those who deny this fact should consult Denzinger 1609 where they will discover a lament from the Bishop of Rheims over the confusion generated among Catholics by the ambiguous Vix Pervenit, some of whom understood it (correctly) as permission for usury.  The bishop asked for a clarification from Pius VIII who, as documented in Denzinger 1610, replies by letting stand the evolving practice of permitting usurers access to the sacraments without repentance for their mortal sin, or the promise to stop their usury operation (much less of making restitution, which is required by the true Catholic Church).

Under papal auspices, since the 1940s the Vatican has operated a usury bank which, in Mafia-plagued Italy, has been a haven for shylocks and financial chicanery of the lowest and most perverse sort, all in the name of the "Vicar of Christ."

The following article discusses attempts by the current pope and the pope emeritus to supposedly "reform" the Vatican Bank. Did Jesus Christ attempt to "reform" the money changers in the Temple, or did He drive them out with a whip?

--Michael Hoffman

Cleric and 2 Others Arrested in Vatican Bank Investigation

By Rachel Donadio

New York Times (online) June 28, 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/29/world/europe/cleric-and-2-others-arrested-in-vatican-bank-investigation.html?hp&_r=0

ROME — The Italian police on Friday arrested a prelate, a financial broker and an agent of the Italian Secret Service on corruption charges as part of a complex plot in which the priest — who is already under investigation on suspicion of money laundering involving the Vatican Bank — is accused of trying to repatriate millions of euros from Switzerland to Italy in a private plane.

Those arrested were charged with fraud, corruption and slander as part of a broad investigation tied to the famously secretive Vatican Bank.

Prosecutors say that the broker and the Secret Service agent had been plotting to help the priest bring 20 million euros, or $26 million, into Italy from Switzerland in a private jet, the ANSA news agency reported. It said that the 20 million euros belonged to “some friends of the monsignor.” The plot never went through.

In a statement, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said that the priest, Msgr. Nunzio Scarano, had been suspended from his position at one of the Vatican’s main financial departments “more than a month ago, ever since his superiors were informed that he was under investigation.”

The Vatican spokesman said that the Holy See had not received any requests from the Italian authorities, but confirmed its “willingness for full collaboration,” and that the Vatican’s internal financial watchdog was following the matter and would take appropriate measures “if necessary.” Those would include requesting that the Vatican’s internal prosecutor open an internal investigation into the monsignor.

A Vatican official said Monsignor Scarano had been suspended from his position as an accountant at APSA, a department that oversees the Vatican’s real estate holdings, after prosecutors in Salerno opened a separate investigation into money laundering. The official indicated that the suspension was a sign that the Vatican was stepping up its internal vigilance.

Only priests, religious, Catholic institutions, employees of Vatican City State and diplomats accredited to the Holy See are allowed to have accounts at the Vatican Bank, known as the Institute for Works of Religion, but rumors have long swirled about whether accounts were used as fronts for other interests, including organized crime and Italian politicians.

In the past, the Italian prelates who controlled the Vatican Bank tended to see any inquires into possible malfeasance as an attack on its sovereignty. Pope Francis and his predecessor, Benedict XVI, have tried to make the Vatican Bank more transparent.

It was not immediately clear whether the Vatican was cooperating with Italian authorities or whether the arrests stemmed from several suspicious transactions — six in 2012 and seven in the first half of 2013 — that Vatican officials said they had flagged and brought to the attention of the Vatican’s own internal prosecutors.

The arrests Friday were the most dramatic events to emerge from the Rome prosecutors’ investigation into the Vatican Bank since 2010, when prosecutors seized 23 million euros from two external accounts used by the Vatican Bank and placed its then-president and director general under investigation.

It had been acting on a warning from the Bank of Italy urging Italian banks to be more vigilant in their dealings with the Vatican, which has not come into full compliance with European banking norms, making it costly and problematic for other banks to do business with it.

In recent years, the Vatican has been under pressure to meet European norms as a condition for using the euro. In 2010, it created an internal financial watchdog and last year appointed as its director a Swiss lawyer who had helped Liechtenstein clean up its murky banking system.

This month, Pope Francis appointed a trusted prelate to a top post at the bank and on Wednesday, the pope took a further step and created a committee of prelates and a Harvard Law School professor to report directly to him on the bank’s progress.

In an interview last month, the new president of the Vatican Bank, Ernst von Freyberg, who was appointed in February by Benedict in one of his last acts as pope, said that he was committed to making the bank more transparent and compliant.

Last year, a report by Moneyval, a monitoring agency under the Council of Europe, said that the Vatican had made progress but still needed to improve in terms of compliance and customer due diligence. The Vatican must submit a new progress report to Moneyval this fall.

Vatican officials have said that the Vatican needs a bank to help Catholic institutions operate around the world, including in politically sensitive areas. The bank had total assets of 7.1 billion euros under management in 2012, most of it invested in government bonds, and turned a net profit of 86.6 million euros. (End quote from the New York Times).

JOIN MICHAEL HOFFMAN THIS SUMMER IN SANDPOINT, IDAHO

Get an education - read "Dante: Tribune of Western Civilization and Target of Dan Brown's Falsification" in the latest issue of Revisionist History newsletter

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E. Michael Jones terms Hoffman's thesis about the Church and usury an "illusion"

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): 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmfMb_8YXkA&feature=youtu.be&t=31m10s

Michael Hoffman Talks About Usury (approx. 33 minutes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT0grvk16NI

Michael Hoffman is the author of Usury in Christendom: The Mortal Sin that Was and Now is Not (paperback; 416 pages), which has been endorsed by Rev. Fr. Christopher Hunter, pastor of St. Therese Roman Catholic Chapel in Klamath Falls, Oregon; and by anti-usury campaigners Anthony Migchels and Daniel Krynicki, as well as Amazon reader-reviewers. Usury in Christendom is blacklisted and boycotted by numerous Catholic leaders, publications and organizations. "Catholic Social Teaching" conferences and gatherings have declined to feature Hoffman as either a speaker, debater or participant. 

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Testimonials for Hoffman’s book on Usury

Encomiums for Michael Hoffman’s new book:
Usury in Christendom: The Mortal Sin that Was and Now is Not

(New review added on March 30, 2013)
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Endorsement by Rev. Fr. Christopher Hunter, SSPX:
“For 1500 years the Church of Rome unequivocally condemned usury as one of the worst of evils; then it suddenly starting teaching that ‘moderate’ usury was permissible. Hoffman’s book challenges Rome to explain the contradiction.

“Rome needs to explain why, after 1500 years of solemnly teaching that usury is one of the worst of evils, it suddenly said it was permissible as long as it was not ‘excessive.’

“Usury in Christendom challenges the Catholic hierarchy to explain how it changed its traditional opposition to usury into permission to practice it. This book needs to be read in Rome.

“Usury in Christendom will remain the definitive textbook on the topic of the Church and usury until such time as Rome discloses why it reversed its 1500-year-old teaching.

“Little wonder the Church of Rome overturned the traditional Latin Rite of Mass if it would overturn its age-old teaching on usury.”

Fr. Hunter is a noted historian of the American Republic. He is the pastor of St. Therese Chapel in Klamath Falls, Oregon and a teacher at the schools of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX).

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"I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for writing the book, Usury in Christendom. I have written in the Bible in the front cover the places that deal with interest or usury. I did that 30 years ago. You’re right on every issue that I can see. Creating money out of thin air and charging interest is the greatest evil that the world has ever seen.”

May God bless you, 

—Linus E.

North Dakota 

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Book Review by Pat Flanagan, M.D. (Wisconsin):

This book takes a while to read, because it is packed with useful  information which the interested reader is advised to read slowly and deeply.  It will be especially important for those Catholics who tend to refer to themselves as Traditional in terms of attending the Latin Mass for their ordinary custom of worship.  I say this in order to prepare this type of reader for some rather startling news that usury is not from the Jews or the Protestants but rather comes from the wealthy Catholic families in Italy and Germany.  And, brace yourselves, the popes since 1515 have said it is OK as long as the interest rate is not excessive!  So forewarned is forearmed.

Simply put, (and not trying to be funny), this book by the author Michael Hoffman promises to do for usury what Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky did to adultery—it will give it a bad name.

I took great enjoyment in reading this book for two reasons: (1) it is myth exploding actually exculpating the Protestants and Judaics from the blame they falsely took for so many centuries for their part in the interest-bearing debt racket and laying the blame squarely on the Catholics who started it and the Roman Catholic Church who authoritatively condoned since the 1500’s; and, (2) it is going to be a sort of cutting board separating Catholics who lust after the Truth no matter how harsh it may sound and those lickspittle Trads whose religion is based on who and not what informs them of their doctrinal teachings.  It is a given that those who still accept the official and approved version of 9-11 and the Holohoax as irreformable historiography are not going to make it past the first few pages.

Hoffman is a true scholar who has been studying this issue of Church approved usury since around 2000 publishing his findings serially in his newsletters right up to the present, so that much of what I have already learned in those publications has been included in the book.   This prompted me to dig them out of my files because he was not able to include all this information in the book due to cost concerns.  But just reviewing this old material helped to further reinforce its importance in my learning experience.

We can never be too casual with avoiding the First Principles of any topic.  As one traditional Catholic who was wont to mechanically associate  the usury industry with the Money Power of the Protestants, specifically the pilgrim Puritans who landed at Plymouth rock in 1620, and the Khazar Talmudists whose experience in this despicable business is legion, it was a real epiphany to me to read that the thesis of Max Weber, the German Catholic of the early 20th century, had falsely ascribed the onus of money profit-making on the Protestant mentality of worldly success being used as a sign of predestination.  If Weber had actually gone back in his research another 200 years he would have discovered that the original Puritan divines of 16th century England based their teachings on the utter immoral nature of usury on earlier Catholic patristic writings and the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas and not on Calvin who actually had made peace with the financial elitists of his day in approving loans at “modest” rates to those who could afford to pay the extra interest on the principal.  And this was certainly news to me where the name Max Weber had become synonymous with sound Catholic scholarship.  Hoffman went back further dredging up First Principles amongst the Catholic families in Florence—the Medicis—and the Fuggers in Germany.

All of this would have meant absolutely nothing had not a pope given it his blessing, and that happened with Pope Leo X at the Fifth Lateran Council in 1515.  From that point on every pope and theologian has given the practice of loaning not above the going legal rate a pass in the Catholic world. Actually now, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) “The Holy See puts its funds out at interest, and requires ecclesiastical administrators to do the same.”

Mike Jones of Culture Wars and his contributors never tire of bringing up Vix Pervenit, the encyclical of Pope Benedict XIV (1745).  A closer reading of this Hegelian-like document does anything but condemn the practice of usury as a huge loophole inserted into its midst undoes the initial proscription of this fiendish practice and instead goes on to describe approvingly of “…just and legitimate reasons…to demand something over and above the amount due on the contract….”  Check it out for yourself as it is the 30th edition of the Enchiridion Symbolorum by Denzinger, edited by none other than Karl Rahner, S.J.

Followers of the Austrian School of Economics in Auburn, Alabama, capitalists down to their boots, would say this of Hoffman and his book, “Flee for your life from the man who tells you money is the root of all evil.  That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter.”  Well, here is news for you guys who preach Free Enterprise and making lots of money is what America is all about—Our Lord never tired of preaching to “Lend expecting nothing in return” (Lk 6:35).  Did He not put his money where his mouth was when he ran the money changers out of the temple, not once but twice, by furiously lashing them with a whip of knotted cords that he especially made for the occasion?  And, yes, He really did foresee the evils of unbacked paper money and unchecked interest on loans in the modern world.  So He meant it back then to continue up to the present.

This book is easily readable and bound neatly in soft cover.  It lacks an index which would be extremely helpful for study, but if you really apply yourself diligently as a good student reading a textbook, which it is, then the index is dispensable.  The bibliography is very impressive showing the effort made in getting down to the origins of this massive criminal syndicate that has been devouring the lifeblood of the remnants of Christendom for these last 500 years.

This is a book that should be read by all people, especially Protestants and Judaics, who might feel a little bit after doing so to chortle, “There, we’ve been trying to tell you that for years!”

—Pat Flanagan

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 I finally finished your superbly written book in the predawn hours this morning.  What comments I am going to share with you now couldn't have been made by me three days ago with only about two-thirds of the book read.   The book is manifestly a scholarly work on the subject of usury.  I say this because the information in the book "squares" with what I have studied and learned from others and examined on my own.  But for me, the undercurrent theme of self-examination of the one's conscience in all things, is the most important.  I'm thinking this was powered by the "mini biographies" and "sermonettes" that are found in just the right places throughout the pages of this book. Your book is a call to repentance of not just the sin of usury but all things that would remove us from His Kingdom here on earth.  May we all be blessed by what you have written!

Gratefully yours,

—Mark Layne

I finished reading Usury in Christendom...I have been saying for several years that from a Christian standpoint we must back out of the banking, debt-based currency, fraudulent monetary/usury system. It is the basis of the preponderance of evils we face today. I had never put two and two together to realize that usury as Divine Law and cannot be revised by the Church. You have laid bare the dreadful fact that all popes since 1515 have promoted this abominable heresy. No wonder the Catholic Church and Faith is nearly destroyed and the world is filled with war, tyranny, and poverty!  Your research can only be described as incredible and bares the signs of Divine assistance. My favorite part is John Jewel's sermon castigating usury and usurers. What a treasure!  I have begun to select about a dozen individuals who I deem to be appropriate to be the recipients of the flier you provided and a recommendation for purchase. ...Those Catholics who cannot tolerate the truth about the Church can only stand in the way of Her restoration. One cannot walk the line. We must either be with Christ or we will be against Him and His Church.   May God bless you in your courageous efforts to overcome the Money Power and just do the right thing despite the consequences, which were, no doubt, foreseen.                                                                         

Respectfully yours, 

--Susan Trelease Nasoni 
DuBois, Pennsylvania 

                                                               

Thank you for your tireless efforts to defend the simple teaching of Scripture regarding counterfeit and godless increase.  Thus you are an alien and stranger in this present evil age, and your enemies are members of your own household.  Take heart by another passage of holy Scripture: "And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart."  Ironically, in battling against counterfeit increase that comes from the hand of Mammon, you are promised in this Scripture and elsewhere true increase that comes from the hand of God, an increase that makes the most usurious schemes pale in comparison, being even 100 fold from the Author of Life, if you do not lose heart.  In this, Satan himself knows he has been defeated. He will pay particular attention to those whose aim is to publish the facts of this defeat.  But the one in you is greater than this one in the world.  Do not lose heart.  

Sincerely,
— R. G. 
Louisville, Kentucky

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Hoffman Talks About Usury

Our new book, Usury in Christendom: The Mortal Sin That Was and Now is Not, has been published and is in print. If you purchased a copy in advance of publication, your book is either in transit or may have already arrived. If your copy has not yet arrived, please be patient. Books to US residents ship by US Postal Service "Media Mail," which can be slow at this time of the year. Shipments to Canada and overseas are sent by air mail but are subject to the vicissitudes of a foreign nation's particular customs office. While supplies last (there is no guarantee of a second printing), Usury in Christendom may be purchased from our online store here, or from Amazon.com here. We are also offering a new DVD:

MICHAEL HOFFMAN TALKS ABOUT USURY (DVD) 

The author of the book Usury in Christendom gives a passionate talk in a private home on interest on debt in light of Biblical doctrine and western history. Production values are not high on this DVD, but the content is! 34 minutes. $16.95 plus shipping. The DVD may be purchased online here.

It is too early to offer an assessment of how Usury in Christendom is being received. Preliminary reactions have ranged from hostility (including, from former friends and supporters, promises of economic retribution and revenge against the author), to appreciation. We have yet to receive enough feedback, however, to offer an accurate and representative spectrum of reaction. It would be a mistake to draw any conclusions at this stage.

We have not managed to raise the funds for an advertising budget for the book, but we did set aside a batch of review copies which are being mailed to a broad swath of newspaper, magazine and newsletter editors, economics professors, theologians, philosophers and anti-debt activists, in the hope that one or more of them will rescue Usury in Christendom from obscurity and publicize or review it; otherwise, until our circumstances change, we are wholly dependent on word-of-mouth and the publicity we ourselves generate in our Hoffman Wire column, at our website (www.revisionisthistory.org), on Twitter (@HoffmanMichaelA), in our blog (http://revisionistreview.blogspot.com) and to our mailing list, via the Post Office.

The book was written Soli Deo Gloria. In our straitened circumstances, my attitude toward its promotion is the same attitude I have taken toward the basic needs of my children when I was pressed for resources. I went to God in the knowledge that ultimately they were His children; asking, on that basis, would He please provide for them. He never failed to do so. It is my opinion (I grant that I may be deluded in this respect) that God wanted Usury in Christendom written, and while any mistakes in its pages are my responsibility alone, it is His book, and He will move those He needs to move to assist in its dissemination, according to His will.

The Money Power in the Middle East

Everywhere I turn I see the Money Power obstructing revival and restoration. We learned last week that Obama and Romney each spent the staggering sum of approximately one billion dollars in seeking the presidency. We find that even the heavens are being merchandized: a private corporation is endeavoring to offer flights to the moon, including a walk on its surface, for $750 million per passenger.

Our fellow Americans are slaving under an immense debt burden, both personal and national. The Republicans who are eager to cut the social safety net out from under the poor, sick and elderly, don't emphasize that a considerable portion of the Federal deficit is due to America's role as world policemen, with the military-industrial complex reaping the profits. One of our friends is a low-ranking, frontline grunt in the U.S. military. Men such as this man -- the proverbial cannon fodder -- are most certainly not enriching themselves from America's endless foreign wars, which are so lucrative to the upper echelon of the Cryptocracy, which has turned a blind eye toward the operations of the Nusra Front ("Jabhat al-Nusra”) of  Syrian rebels  — an arm of Al Qaeda in Iraq -- which has killed American troops. If this Nusra Front organization had been linked to Iran we would be hunting it with drones and sanctioning their sponsors. But Al Qaeda's Nusra Front in Syria is part of the ordained overthrow of the Assad government, as protected, funded and armed by the fabulously wealthy kingdoms of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. In the wake of this outrage, there are few if any saber-rattling howls of indignation from the Right wing members of Congress who are based in the Deep South.

The killers of American troops are seizing power in Syria, and this suits the Israeli network that seeks perpetual war by building up enemies which they then shape and secretly control at the highest levels (it was the Israelis who helped to found Hamas).

Only after these enemies are in power, Senators like Lindsay Graham and John McCain will call for a multi-billion dollar military crusade to dislodge them -- only after elements of Al Qaeda are part of the new ruling coalition in Syria. A similar scenario unfolded in Libya with the "Allies" helping to put Al Qaeda type elements in power and now screeching about the assault on our embassy and the death of our ambassador.

From whence comes this cowardice, treason and duplicity, and the apathy of our people in the face of it? There are many symptoms, yet only one root: the love of money, and the power that comes to those who control oil, the greatest material prize of our age, or the Money Power's core power plant: compound interest on debt.

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Usury in the Name of Jesus

Michael Hoffman's Note: Here below is current information from a generally reliable journalist on the usury bank ("IOR" - "Institute for Works of Religion") of the Catholic Church. This is another case where mortal sin is institutionalized and conducted without controversy. Usury in the name of Jesus Christ becomes business-as-usual, operated as the "religious works" of God.

EXCERPT: “...there has never been a sample testing of the CDD files maintained by the IOR or a supervisory assessment by the FIA including the scrutiny of transactions and the origin of funds in transactions carried out by the IOR.”

Translation of the subtle code employed above: the usury bank of the Catholic Church has never been in compliance with anti-money laundering laws.  A certain "René Brülhart" has been hired to give the Vatican Bank a better image.  The report's emphasis is on the crime of money-laundering. The crime (and mortal sin) of usury is not an issue.

Here is another excerpt from the article, this time in uncoded language:

 "...the Italian judiciary...is looking into suspect money flows noticed in the Vatican Bank’s accounts...Despite the introduction of anti-money laundering laws and the assurance given by Vatican Bank heads that it no longer holds any anonymous accounts, investigators found that dirty money can also pass through non-anonymous accounts belonging to priests or clerics..."

It might seem strange to present this information on the day before the presidential election. Yet nothing exceeds the empire of the Money Power when it comes to nullifying the laws of God or threatening our liberties. Like more foreign wars in places like Iran, the rule of the Money Power has largely escaped scrutiny in the Romney-Obama election contest.

Hoffman is the author of Usury in Christendom: The Mortal Sin that Was and Now is Not (paperback, 416 pages), forthcoming  in December from Independent History and Research.

VATICAN FINANCES: SWISS JAMES BOND TO THE RESCUE

The Holy See’s Swiss anti-money laundering advisor, René Brülhart, is playing an increasingly key role in the Vatican’s finances. Meanwhile, the Vatican Bank (IOR) still has no president

By Andrea Tornielli

La Stampa (Italy) November 5, 2012

VATICAN CITY --[H]is success, combined with his good looks, led one magazine to dub the 40-year-old Swiss lawyer the James Bond of the financial world.”

This is how The Economist described René Brülhart, the director of Liechtenstein’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), in its 20 October issue. Brülhart is now the Vatican’s new financial advisor, whose job it will be to get the tiny State onto the “white list” of territories deemed to comply with international standards on combating financial crime. Last September, Fr. Lombardi had announced that Brülhart was being hired to strengthen the Vatican’s armor in the battle against financial crime.

In actual fact, Brülhart had, albeit in an informal and low key way, Brülhart had already started working with the Holy See back in December 2011, when, in a matter of weeks, the Secretariat of State changed its anti-money laundering law, in line with Moneyval’s requirements. Moneyval is the Council of Europe’s anti-money-laundering group. These changes, which were set in stone by a new law promulgated in January 2012, were at the centre of a heated internal debate, whose protagonists included the President of the FIA (Financial Information Authority), Cardinal Attilio Nicora and the President of the IOR (Institute for Works of Religion, commonly known as the Vatican Bank), Ettore Gotti Tedeschi. Both these figures were concerned about a downsizing of the body in charge of combating anti-money laundering.

In the Moneyval report published last July, Strasbourg experts recognised the progress made by the Vatican and indicated areas where work still needed to be done. The legislative basis for the surveillance of money-laundering practices needed further reinforcement. Assessors commented the role, responsibilities, authority, powers and independence of the FIA were not clear. The FIA is the financial authority created by the Vatican to intervene in cases where suspicious operations are performed or when transferrals of money of dubious provenance are made.

Furthermore, experts observed, “there has never been a sample testing of the CDD files maintained by the IOR or a supervisory assessment by the FIA including the scrutiny of transactions and the origin of funds in transactions carried out by the IOR.” Hence “it [was] strongly recommended that IOR is also supervised by a prudential supervisor in the near future as currently there is no adequate, independent supervision of the IOR and that the supervisor should have adequate powers of enforcement and sanction against financial institutions, and their directors or senior management for failure to comply with or properly implement requirements.”

Brülhart has begun to play an increasingly central and important role, significantly lightening the workload of American lawyer Jeffrey Lena who had been part of the Vatican Secretariat of State’s team in charge of changing the anti-money laundering law, right from the start. According to The Economist, Brülhart has two aims: the first is to “build a financial-intelligence unit that can investigate suspicious money flows properly.” The second is “to create a truly independent supervising authority for the Vatican Bank and the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, which manages the Vatican’s property and securities holdings.” This is given that the FIA “lacks the legal powers and independence necessary to monitor and sanction these financial institutions.”

The Vatican has assured it is not thinking about establishing a new body, although the idea was taken into consideration ten months ago. It is, however, working on responding effectively to Moneyval’s requests. In recent weeks the Italian judiciary, which is looking into suspect money flows noticed in the Vatican Bank’s accounts, sent some rogatory letters to the Holy See. Despite the introduction of anti-money laundering laws and the assurance given by Vatican Bank heads that it no longer holds any anonymous accounts, investigators found that dirty money can also pass through non anonymous accounts belonging to priests or clerics who are deceived or who are too complaisant. This problem exists in banks in every State but is particularly embarrassing for a “sui generis” State like the Vatican.

The path towards transparency which Benedict XVI is so eager for the Vatican to follow is not simple by any means, despite the impressive efforts of the sturdy young Swiss “Deus ex machina” the Holy See has placed its trust in. This is partly because there are some in the Catholic Church who, following the scandals of recent months, are wondering whether it is really necessary for the Vatican today to keep an institution like the IOR going.

Meanwhile, no progress seems to have been made in the choice of a successor to the Vatican Bank’s former president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi. He was fired last May in a way that had never been seen before in the history of the Holy See.”There is no hurry; there is no reason to do things in a hurry,” reliable Vatican sources assure. According to information “filtering through” from the Holy See, the Vatican Banks’ new president will neither be Italian nor American. Instead, it looks likely that a German (the 74 year old Ronald Hermann Schmitz, the former MD for Deutsche Bank and current vice president of the IOR who is temporarily standing in for Gotti Tedeschi, is a German). A decision is expected before Christmas.

The selection process appears incredibly thorough, which is a sign of the significant interest and attention which Secretariat of State authorities are giving to this issue. The fact a new president has not been chosen, five months after Gotti Tedeschi’s dismissal, shows that the position does not urgently need to be filled and that the bank’s management, which has been entrusted to the IOR and its director general, Paolo Cipriani, is currently deemed satisfactory.

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Latest News: progress on the Usury book

USURY BOOK

I am continuing my work on my forthcoming book on the history of the rise of the Money Power in the West, "Usury in Christendom: The Mortal Sin that Was and Now is Not."

This book was due to be sent to the printer right about now. We could not do that however, because, thinking the book was finished and just needed a final proofreading, God afforded me the grace to stumble upon an extensive body of original material related to early usury practices in the city-state of Florence, and I could not pass it by and maintain my faith with God -- I do not consider myself in charge of my writing or publishing -- that will strike some as mystification or self-delusion. Critics are free to call it what they choose (Matthew 5:11). I soldier on, in the belief, mistaken or otherwise, that God wants this book written and He wants it done right. Consequently, I am in the midst of adding a substantial section on the roots of usury in Florence in the period after Dante and before the ascendance of the Medicis. This research is doubly important from the point of view of my thesis of the Talmudic-Kabbalistic penetration of the Roman Catholic Church by Renaissance neo-Platonists who used Florence as their base of operations. The banking operations of the Florentine Money Power preceded the "Christian" Kabbalism which, in later decades, Medici-sponsored Catholic intellectuals would successfully seed inside the Vatican.

In the past couple of weeks we have had to spend hundreds of dollars to purchase rare texts containing primary documentation on usury in Florence (it also flourished in Venice). Some of these have arrived, others are in transit. I am working night and day to incorporate this material as quickly as I can so that we can get a page count for the book and offer it in a pre-publication sale while it is at the printers. We need to raise funds soon. A pre-publication sale is the most reliable means by which we can pay the printing bill and hopefully pay off some of the deficits incurred while I was writing and researching the book. You will be notified when the book is offered at a discounted price ahead of its publication date. In the meantime, if anyone can help us at present we would be most grateful.

ANOTHER BATTLE WITH AMAZON.com

In between writing the book, we have been battling harassment from Amazon.com. Readers who have been with us since 2008 will recall the embargo Amazon placed for months on the sale of our large hardcover book, Judaism Discovered, after a rabbi submitted a complaint. Now we have been battling Amazon in two areas. Since June 20 Amazon has prevented us from adding book reviews to the Amazon web page that offers our 2011 book, Judaism's Strange Gods. We contacted them immediately in June and they have replied by giving us a number of responses, such as, that the reviews are blocked because of a "legacy issue" (?), a "technical issue," or alternately, claiming that the problem is fixed and we could re-submit the reviews, which we have done repeatedly since June 20, to no effect. Obviously, having favorable book reviews by third party reviewers on the Amazon web page for Judaism's Strange Gods would increase our sales. As it is, sales of Judaism's Strange Gods are fairly robust without the reviews and despite the fact that Amazon will not sell the book at a discount, as it does for hundreds of thousands of other volumes it markets below retail.

Amazon has also been interdicting this writer's reviews of other people's books. In June of 2011 we posted what is, I think it is reasonable to say, a fairly devastating critique of the book Genocide Denials and the Law -- a tome authored by some of the Cryptocracy's most highly placed judges, attorneys and other inquisitors, dedicated to jailing those who doubt the homicidal dimensions of the most sacred relic of the otherwise agnostic West, the "gas chambers." Genocide Denials and the Law is intended to serve as a template for lesser fry among legal beagles worldwide, to guide them in instituting their own repressive laws and jaundice toward those skeptics who dare to cast doubt on some aspect of the enormous corpus of allegations made against the German people grouped under the Orwellian Newspeak term "The Holocaust." 

My June 2011 review of Genocide Denials and the Law was eventually taken down by Amazon. For quite a while I could not spare the time to address the issue, but on Sept. 2 I sent in the review of the book again. It was rejected on the basis that tipsters informed Amazon that I had used "excessive quotes" from the book to make my points, and "excessive quotes" were not permitted in a review. (Care to place a wager concerning the identity of these ever-vigilant tipsters?). Yesterday I submitted to Amazon another version of the review, with many of the quotes censored, as Amazon indicated. The review is now online here. (Readers who would like to read the entire, uncensored review as it first appeared in print can purchase a copy of Revisionist History newsletter no. 57 here [scroll to the issue titled “Criminalizing Doubt"). It is worthwhile to review books at Amazon, in so far as time permits. The potential audience is vast and one has the rare opportunity to directly challenge the buncombe of some of the grandest poobahs in the pantheon of political correctness; a forum afforded a revisionist gadfly nowhere else before so large a potential audience.

We're under constant attack from various quarters. The Amazon imbroglio is only one part of the adversary's offensive.

NEWS DIGEST

In the wake of the Republican Money Power gala in Tampa, we put together a digest of the news of the week and it's available for your perusal here. Topics include: Taxpayers foot the bill for Republican billionaires; Republican 'Patriots' for China; Romney's sister: "A ban on abortion is never going to happen in a Romney administration"; Mark Potok's Media Immunity; Feminist Shulamith Bath Shmuel Ben Ari Feuerstein - Prophetess of Artificial Insemination; and: Bernanke intends to print more money.

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