"laws and decrees enacted in contravention of the moral order, and hence of the divine will, can have no binding force in conscience"

"The doctrine on the necessary conformity of civil law with the moral law is in continuity with the whole tradition of the Church. This is clear once more from John XXIII's Encyclical: 'Authority is a postulate of the moral order and derives from God. Consequently, laws and decrees enacted in contravention of the moral order, and hence of the divine will, can have no binding force in conscience...; indeed, the passing of such laws undermines the very nature of authority and results in shameful abuse'.⁹⁵ This is the clear teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas, who writes that 'human law is law inasmuch as it is in conformity with right reason and thus derives from the eternal law. But when a law is contrary to reason, it is called an unjust law; but in this case it ceases to be a law and becomes instead an act of violence'.⁹⁶ And again: 'Every law made by man can be called a law insofar as it derives from the natural law. But if it is somehow opposed to the natural law, then it is not really a law but rather a corruption of the law'.⁹⁷"

     Pope John Paul II, Evangelium vitae (25 March 1995) 72.

Lockwood O'Donovan on the "enviably balanced, penetrating, and, most of all, faithful theological comprehension of economic life" that is medieval usury theory

     "A favorite argument of economic historians has been that the more plausible medieval objections to lending at interest are overcome by the presence of a competitive market for money that establishes a just common estimate of value.  This implies that the only plausible objection is to the monopolistic exploitation of borrowers in the absence of credit institutions."

     Joan Lockwood O'Donovan in "The theological economics of medieval usury theory" (2001), in Oliver O'Donovan and Joan Lockwood O'Donovan, Bonds of imperfection: Christian politics, past and present (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004), 120 (97-120), italics mine.
     A helpful (not to mention uncomfortable!) introduction to the "enviably balanced, penetrating, and, most of all, faithful theological comprehension of economic life" that is medieval usury theory (italics mine).  Implied in this final paragraph, as supported by the body of the essay as a whole, is that that is not the only plausible objection.
     Moreover, "the medieval vision of economic society runs [in so many ways] counter to the modern vision of a growth economy:  of a system of ever-expanding production and consumption financed by credit."
     For Lockwood O'Donovan, this is all recovered and forcefully re-stated by Luther, who, rejecting the distinction between the counsels and the commands, picks up again and re-stresses the evangelical commands in such a way as to buttress also the old arguments from  natural law that had been somewhat undermined ("rewritt[en] . . . to accommodate free-market principles" (99; cf. 112-116)) by the Franciscans Olivi, Duns Scotus, and Odonis.
     And Luther on the four degrees of "righteous dealing" (117-118, or the Long sermon on usury (1520), incorporated into the treatise on Trade and usury (1524; LW 45, 245-310) is challenging indeed.
     Holy cow!  "You were serious about that?"

A right: the power of an individual to perform a lawful action

A "subjective [(as distinguished from objective)] right [i]s the power of an individual to perform a lawful action, or in other words, . . . a 'lawful' or 'licit' power."

     Joan Lockwood O'Donovan on William of Ockham and Marsiglio of Padua, in "The challenge and the promise of proto-modern Christian political thought," in Oliver O'Donovan and Joan Lockwood O'Donovan, Bonds of imperfection:  Christian politics, past and present (Grand Rapids, MI:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004), 148 (137-166).  Also Jean Gerson:  an "individual right [i]s a 'proximate faculty (facultas) or power' conforming to the dictate of 'right reason' or 'primary justice'" (150).