This piece builds on my recent piece on Édouard Drumont and Nick Fuentes by exploring Christianity’s complex relationship with fascism.

It is easy to forget that there was a time when some Christian leaders regarded fascism not as the enemy of Christianity, but as its political ally. That history may not seem as distant today as it once did.

In the years between the two world wars, fascism promised something Italian church leaders desperately needed. It presented itself as the great enemy of communism, militant secularism, liberal individualism, and the moral fragmentation of modern Europe. Many Christian leaders judged fascism less by what it was than by what they believed it would do. It would defeat communism, strengthen the family, revive national purpose, and return Christianity to the center of public life.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, David Kertzer, The Pope and Mussolini, shows Pope Pius XI viewed Mussolini as more than a political ally. Fiercely anti-communist, he believed fascism would halt the advance of communism while reversing years of liberal anticlericalism in Italy. https://www.davidkertzer.com/

The Lateran Accords of 1929 vindicated his hope, restoring Vatican sovereignty, returning Catholicism to a privileged place in Italian public life, and offering the promise of rebuilding a Catholic social order. Pius XI wasn’t seeking only accommodation with the fascist Italian state but pursuing a political order in which Catholicism would shape the nation.

The same pattern appeared in Spain. Francisco Franco cast his uprising as a defense of Christian civilization against communism. The Russian Revolution had convinced many Christians that communism posed an existential threat to both the Church and Christian civilization. Opposition to communism became so urgent that large numbers of Christians accepted, defended, and supported authoritarianism. For many, the overriding desire to defeat communism made that alliance necessary.

That anti-communism shaped Pius XI’s approach to Nazi Germany. Hitler also presented Nazism as communism’s great enemy, triggering Vatican hopes that accommodating the Nazis would preserve both the Church and Christian........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)