Catholic View of fascism

[Jonathan3]

I’m curious as to what the general (traditional) Catholic opinion of Italian fascism is. As it was essentially created to be at least somewhat compatible with the Church’s teaching and was adopted by some Catholic groups (i.e the Austrian Fatherland Front), It seems in my opinion that Catholics could be allowed to support certain aspects of fascism.

 

[do_justly_love_mercy]

I thought I knew what Catholics thought about fascism before I discovered Catholics on the internet…

 

[commenter]

Any system is only as good or bad as the people who run it. Democracy gave us a Lincoln, but it also gave us a Hitler.

Fascism on paper is not necessarily all bad. Instead of having representatives elected only by geographic districts, they had people representing farmers, people representing skilled tradesmen, and do on. This seems more attractive than having a huge number of lawyers, for instance.

But in reality it was turned into a dictatorship by Mussolini. They seemed influenced by the “Might Makes Right” philosophy, the powerful abusing the week, at home and other countries.

So Mussolini was bad, fascism itself is a separate issue. Fascism is left wing, because they believed in strong government, especially a strong national government. It’s not as far Left as Communism, but it’s Left, like National Socialism.

Fascism called for a strong leader, but not such a cruel government.

 

[CRM_Brother]

The underlying philosophies of Italian contradicted Catholic teaching. This delineation was pretty clear when Pope Pius XI broke all ties the Catholic Church officially had with the PPI, the Italian People’s Party which was founded upon Catholic social teaching, when Benito Mussolini merged his National Fascist party with the PPI. Catholicism was a tool for fascism to gain popularity but, in it’s principle philosophies, it was geared toward an atheistic state in which religion was only allowed to exist as a puppet of the government.

Mussolini made sure of this in the Lateran Treaty where Catholicism became Italy’s official state religion. The Italian State became the employer of the Bishops and Priests in the most literal sense that the State paid their salaries. These salaries were a two edged sword. The State quickly began to sensor sermons and anti-fascist sentiments, outright “firing” priests and bishops who openly dissented. The supposed Catholic groups which supported fascism were not in union with the Vatican, who were trying to quietly and peacefully subvert fascist policies.

 

[Salibi]

It’s not as far Left as Communism, but it’s Left, like National Socialism .

I’m afraid you are laughably wrong, and it does seem very clear to me that you posting with an agenda.

Nazism is a far-right ideology. Like other far-right ideologies, it is characterized by racial supremacism, a strong “us against them” mentality, and the identification of a certain group of people (Jews, immigrants, Muslims) as the “Other”, which poses an existential threat to “us” and with whom we are engaged in an epic battle. The fact that Nazism has “socialism” in its name does not make it socialist. Communist regimes with “People’s Democratic Republic of…” in their names are not democratic republics because they have “democratic republic” in their name.

Fascism is also a far-right ideology, characterized by traditional far-right characteristics as ultranationalism, totalitarianism, and scapegoating of the “Other”. Sounds familiar?

Kindly do not intentionally misrepresent fascistic and Nazi ideologies because you would like to pursue an agenda.

Good day.

 

[Ridgerunner]

To me there is little difference among the various forms of dictatorship. They may call themselves “communist” or they may call themselves “fascist” or they may call themselves democracies or “socialist” or “aristocracies” or “oligarchies” or anything else. But all dictatorships are fundamentally the same. A small ruling group is supported by a larger “enforcement” group, and together they totally govern and loot and/or favor segments of the rest of the society, to varying degrees.

But they’re all the same fundamentally. The epithets “left” or “right” are not really descriptive.

 

[do_justly_love_mercy]

Nazism is a far- right ideology.

I’ve had this argument on CAF before. As I recall, I even cited Professor Sir Richard Evans and Professor Sir Ian Kershaw, respectively the world’s foremost authority on Nazi Germany and the world’s foremost authority on Hitler. I’m afraid you won’t get anywhere, although I applaud you for trying. There’s a very vocal school of thought in my country (and only in my country…) that promotes the entirely false notion that fascism was in some way left wing. It’s just a way of trying to make out that “the left” is responsible for all of the worst atrocities of the twentieth century rather than just half of them.

 

[Salibi]

There’s a very vocal school of thought in my country (and only in my country…) that promotes the entirely false notion that fascism was in some way left wing. It’s

I…I do not know what to make of this. I’m not a supporter of left-wing ideologies myself (real left-wing ideologies, like Communism and socialism) but that does sound very annoying.

 

[TheCatholicKnight]

Autocratic states are perfectly acceptable under Catholic social teaching. Whether a government is ‘fascist’ or not requires the acceptance of an entirely new and contradictory moral vocabulary. States are designated “fascist” not because they possess some inherently exclusive ‘fascist’ characteristic, but because progressive ideologues deem it condemnatory (which we can see as a strong sign of them being virtuous).

The first and foremost characteristic a state must have according to Catholic tradition is an integration of the Church in its political affairs. ‘Fascist’ states are perfectly capable of doing this. Therefore, it’s not inherently impossible for a Catholic to support a ‘fascist’ regime.

 

[TMC]

It’s just a way of trying to make out that “the left” is responsible for all of the worst atrocities of the twentieth century rather than just half of them.

Yeah, there is a very vocal group here on CAF that believe Right - Good, Left - Bad, and you can’t get past that. Heck, even the Pope and the Church can’t get past that.

 

[JerryZ]

Not many people know that Mussolini was member of the Communist party of Italy and had a fall out with it where he founded his own party. His difference from the main communist ideology is that he was a nationalist putting country first whereas the communist party was and is more of a global enterprise. They will sacrifice country for their global agenda. This is why wealthy countries will have starving populations while their leaders are furthering their agendas abroad.
Peace!

 

[stpurl]

Well, that’s because neither the Pope nor the Church is political. Neither left nor right. In fact, isn’t that even in Scripture somewhere? That we should walk going neither to right nor left?

 

[FiveLinden]

Was the Catholic Church supportive of the fascist Italian invasion of Ethiopia?

 

[Funvod]

Never thought I’d see fascism defended on this site.

 

[Dolphin]

Fascism is left wing, because they believed in strong government, especially a strong national government. It’s not as far Left as Communism, but it’s Left, like National Socialism .

Fascism is the complete opposite of Communism and is absolutely nothing like socialism. It is an extreme far-right (alt-right / neo-nazi in an American sense) ideology.

People call trump a fascist (whether deserved or not) and he is anything but far-left. Hitler sure wasn’t far left either whereas Stalin definitely was.

Why do you think Stalin and Hitler were enemies? Ideologically they were polar opposites.

 

[DaveBj]

I think people are forgetting that the left-right continuum is not a straight line; it is a curve. If John goes far enough left, and Jim goes far enough right, they’ll find themselves face to face.

D

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I know better than to even attempt to discuss any kind of past European regime with actual Europeans…
It leads to nothing good

 

[StudentMI]

Karl Hess made the argument in his book Dear America that all authoritarian regimes should be classed as right wing while all philosophies emphasizing freedom should be classed as left wing. He himself was a free market anarchist.

Fascism is the economic system that Pope Pius XI comes very close to advocating in Quadragesimo Anno. Murray Rothbard, the anarcho-capitalist economist, called it a fascist document.

 

[JerryZ]

Actually that is totally wrong.
The ideologies of both Nazism and Fascism are socialistic but are also not geared toward an ideology from outside of the country where they flourished.
In fact Fascism for example in Italy instituted the Social Security for the Italians, were heavy on education, industrialization of the country and development of the industrial base.
The State was the supreme entity. Does that sound familiar?
Stalin followed communism which tries to expand and control every country around it. Hitler was not going to be second to anyone.
Also Fascism is the wrong name of the party founded by Mussolini AFTER he left the communist party of Italy (PCI), it used the Roman depiction of a round of spears bound together with a leader strap to a battle axe, this is known as “Fascio” hence the name.
The soldiers of a victorious legion would parade in Rome in this manner signifying that they would not attack since bound spears could not be used offensively. You can find an image of it in the most strange of places.(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
Oh before I forget,
The actual name of the party was “Movimento Sociale Italiano”.
NAZI (National Socialist German Workers’ Party)

Peace!

 

[Kaninchen]

AFTER he left the communist party of Italy (PCI)

He was never a member of the PCI, he had been a member of the Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI) until the War. The MSI was founded after Mussolini’s death.

For most of its life, Mussolini’s Party was known as Partito Nazionale Fascista, PNF.

Neither the PNF, nor the NSDAP were socialist.