"You don't know much about it," he said. "Greed, in the opinion of our fathers, consists almost exclusively in the intention to receive this profit precisely as a profit. And so our Father Escobar teaches us to avoid covetousness by simply deviating from intention (Tr. 3, Prov. 5, NoNo 4, 33, 44): "It would be covetous," he says, "to take advantage of those whom you lend, if you demand it in the name of justice; but if it is demanded in the form of gratitude, then this is no longer covetousness." And under No 3: "It is not permitted to intend to benefit directly from borrowed money; but to have a claim to it through the benevolence of the one who has been borrowed, media benevolentia, is not covetousness."

Here are the refined methods for you; but one of the best, in my opinion (since we have so many to choose from), is the Mohatra Treaty method.

"The Treaty of Mohatra, my father!"

"I see," he said, "that you don't know what it is. Only the name is strange. Escobar will explain this to you (Tr. 3, Prov. 3, No 36): "The contract of Mohatra is that by means of which cloths are bought at a high price and on credit, in order to immediately resell them to the same person for cash and cheaply." This is what the Mohatra contract means: you see from this that a certain amount of cash is obtained, and there remains an obligation for a large amount.

"But, my father, it seems to me that Escobar alone uses the word; Are there any other books that have talked about it?

"How ignorant you are," said the priest. The latest book on moral theology, which was published this year in Paris, speaks about the Mohatra Treaty and is very scientific. It is entitled Epilogus Summanm. It is an abbreviation of all the sums of theology, borrowed from our Fathers: Suárez, Sánchez, Lessius, Fagundes, Hurtado, and other famous casuists, as indicated in the title. You will therefore find there on page 54: "Mohatra is a contract in which a man, in need of twenty pistoles, buys thirty pistoles worth of cloth from a merchant, to be paid in a year's time, and immediately sells it back to him for twenty pistoles in cash." You can clearly see from this that Mohatra is not at all an unheard-of word.

"And then, my father, is this treaty permitted?"

"Escobar," replied the priest, "says in the same place that 'there are laws which forbid him on pain of very severe punishments.'

"Is he useless, then, my father?"

"Not at all," he said, "for Escobar gives in the same place the means of making it permissible, 'whenever," he says, "he who sells and buys back has profit as his main object, provided that he does not fix a price higher than the highest price of a substance of this kind when he sells, and does not give less than the lowest when he buys, and so long as they do not have an agreement about it before, either in their own terms or otherwise." But Lessius (De just., book 2, ch. 21, ed. 16) says: "Even if one were to sell with the intention of buying back at a lower price, there is no obligation to return this profit, except out of mercy, in the case when the one from whom it is obtained is in poverty, and if, moreover, in returning it, one does not hinder oneself in any way: si commode potest." That's all that can be said on this matter.

"Indeed, my father, I think that greater leniency would be vicious.

"Our fathers," he said, "know how to stop so well in time!" You see enough of all of this benefit to Mohatra.

I could teach you many other ways, but these are enough, and it remains for me to talk to you about people who are entangled in their affairs. Our fathers have contrived to help them according to the condition in which they find themselves, namely, that if they do not have sufficient means to live decently and at the same time pay their debts, they are allowed to conceal a part of their property by declaring themselves bankrupt to their creditors. This is what our father Lessius decides, and this is confirmed by Escobar (tr. 3, pr. 2, No 163): "Does a bankrupt man with a clear conscience have the right to withhold as much of his fortune as is required for the decent maintenance of his family, tie indecore vivat? I assert, with Lessius, that yes, even if he had profited by means of injustices and crimes known to all, ex injustitia et notorio delicto; although in this case he cannot retain as much as in others."

"How, my father, by what strange mercy do you wish to leave this property to him who has made it by stealing, that he may be able to live decently, and not to his creditors, to whom it rightfully belongs?"