An Interesting Remark from Pope Francis to Begin Lent: Did the Pope Just Revive Teaching against Usury?

Rome Reports has a story on the Pope's remarks to begin Lent. The style and substance of these remarks is consistent with His Holiness' past statements, but I noticed one little wrinkle that I hope gets amplified by the press:POPE FRANCIS:"And often, in desperation, many men end in suicide because they fail and don't have hope. They don't find a helping hand but a hand that asks them to pay interest. The biblical message is clear: open up courageously and share. This is mercy. And if we want God to be merciful to us it must come from us first.”Usury is typically defined these days as the charging of excessive interest on loans. But it wasn't always seen that way by the Church. She forbade lending at any interest. The Mohammedans still adhere to this principle, which in effect causes profit without work. A most appropriate reflection on Ash Wednesday, recalling the expulsion from Eden and the curse to man of having to work by the sweat of his brow to gain the fruits of the earth. Pope Francis didn't say the desperate man received a hand that asks for "excessive or heavy" interest. He said a hand that asks for "interest". The giving he is asking for is precisely that giving in charity and love on the part of Christians, and not a system of institutionalized redistribution founded on the lending of money at interest. Whether or not His Holiness even realizes it, this is the system of a Catholic society, the kind the Henry VIIIs of the world seek to replace with the state usurping the Role of Church and charities. Isn't that that society we want to have? I wonder how bankers feel about interest lending being criticized by the pope?