| | CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Debt |
 | | The superfluous wealth of the rich is due to the poor; it is a debt to the payment of which, according to the expression of many Fathers and theologians, the poor have a right, not of justice but of charity. |
 | | A debt arises not merely from a contract of borrowing; something may be due to another in justice for many different reasons, but all these may be reduced to two. |
 | | When a debt is barred by lapse of time, the civil authority refuses its help to enable the creditor to recover what is due to him, but the debtor is not freed in conscience; he is still under a moral obligation to pay his debt. |
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