Clerical fascism (also clero-fascism or clerico-fascism) is an ideology that combines the political and economic doctrines of fascism with clericalism. The term has been used to describe organizations and movements that combine religious elements with fascism, receive support from religious organizations which espouse sympathy for fascism, or fascist regimes in which clergy play a leading role.

A core distinction separating clerical fascism from other forms of right-wing Catholic politics is that it requires the fascist polity to be subordinated to the moral and social doctrines of the Catholic Church, explicitly affirming the Church's primacy over the state's ideological goals. This differentiates it from movements where Catholic support is merely tactical or secondary.

When coined in 1920s Italy, the term referred to the political ideology of the Roman Catholic Italian People's Party which supported Benito Mussolini and his fascist regime. The term was also used for Catholics in Northern Italy who advocated a synthesis of Roman Catholicism and fascism.

History

The term clerical fascism (clero-fascism or clerico-fascism) emerged in the early 1920s in the Kingdom of Italy, referring to the faction of the Roman Catholic Partito Popolare Italiano (PPI) which supported Benito Mussolini and his regime. It was supposedly coined by Don Luigi Sturzo, a priest and Christian democrat leader who opposed Mussolini and went into exile in 1924, although the term had also been used before Mussolini's March on Rome in 1922 to refer to Catholics in Northern Italy who advocated a synthesis of Roman Catholicism and fascism.

Sturzo made a distinction between the "filofascists", who left the Catholic PPI in 1921 and 1922, and the "clerical fascists" who stayed in the party after the March on Rome, advocating collaboration with the fascist government. Eventually, the latter group converged with Mussolini, abandoning the PPI in 1923 and creating the Centro Nazionale Italiano. The PPI was disbanded by the fascist regime in 1926.

The term has since been used by scholars seeking to contrast authoritarian-conservative clerical fascism with more radical variants. Christian fascists focus on internal religious politics, such as passing laws and regulations that reflect their view of Christianity. Radicalized forms of Christian fascism or clerical fascism (clero-fascism or clerico-fascism) were emerging on the far-right of the political spectrum in some European countries during the interwar period in the first half of the 20th century.

Fascist Italy

thumb|upright=1.2|[[Mussolini (far right) signing the Lateran Treaty (Vatican City, 11 February 1929)]]

In 1870, the newly formed Kingdom of Italy annexed the remaining Papal States, depriving the Pope of his temporal power. However, in the 1929 Lateran Treaty, Mussolini recognized the Pope as Sovereign of Vatican City State, and Roman Catholicism became the state religion of Fascist Italy.

In March 1929, a nationwide plebiscite was held to publicly endorse the Lateran Treaty. Opponents were intimidated by the fascist regime: the organisation Catholic Action (Azione Cattolica) and Mussolini claimed that "no" votes were of those "few ill-advised anti-clericals who refuse to accept the Lateran Pacts". Nearly nine million Italians voted, or 90 per cent of the registered electorate, with only 136,000 voting "no".

Almost immediately after the signing of the Treaty, relations between Mussolini and the Church soured again. Mussolini "referred to Catholicism as, in origin, a minor sect that had spread beyond Historical Palestine only because grafted onto the organization of the Roman empire." After the concordat, "he confiscated more issues of Catholic newspapers in the next three months than in the previous seven years." as well as Protestant Christians, especially Evangelicals and Pentecostals.

Examples of clerical fascism

thumb|Roman Catholic priest [[Jozef Tiso (right), who was president of the Slovak Republic, a client state of Nazi Germany]]

thumb|right|Catholic prelates led by Archbishop [[Aloysius Stepinac at the funeral of Marko Došen, one of the senior Ustaše leaders, in September 1944]]

thumb|[[Lapua Movement members praying, Vihtori Kosola in the middle]]

thumb|[[Francoist Spain|Francoist minister Esteban Bilbao (left) and Catholic archbishop Enrique Pla y Deniel (center) doing the Fascist salute in Toledo Cathedral, Spain, March 1942]]

Examples of political movements which incorporate certain elements of clerical fascism into their ideologies include:

  • the Fatherland Front in Austria led by Austrian Catholic Chancellors Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt Schuschnigg.
  • the Rexist Party in Belgium led by Léon Degrelle, a Belgian Catholic.
  • the Brazilian Integralist Action in Brazil led by Brazilian Catholic Plínio Salgado.
  • the Nationalist Liberation Alliance in Argentina led by .
  • the Ustaše movement led by Poglavnik and Prime Minister Ante Pavelić in the Independent State of Croatia and its supporters in the Croatian Catholic Church.
  • the ZBOR movement led by Dimitrije Ljotić in the Nedic's Serbia, heavily supported by Nikolaj Velimirović and Serbian Orthodox Church
  • the Lapua Movement and the Patriotic People's Movement (IKL) in Finland led by the Lutherans (körtti) Vihtori Kosola and Vilho Annala respectively. Pastor Elias Simojoki led the IKL's youth organization the Blue-and-Blacks.
  • the German Christians of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany led by Ludwig Müller which attempted but failed to unify German Protestants during the Kirchenkampf.
  • Metaxism and the 4th of August Regime in Greece which was led by Ioannis Metaxas and heavily supported the Greek Orthodox Church.
  • the National Synarchist Union in Mexico led by Mexican Catholic José Antonio Urquiza before his assassination in 1938, it was a revival of the Catholic reaction that triggered the Cristero War; midcentury, the movement would become the focus of a conspiracy theory which alleged that it had infiltrated various institutions under the name El Yunque.
  • the National Radical Camp in Poland led by Boleslaw Piasecki, Henryk Rossman, Tadeusz Gluzinski and Jan Mosdorf which heavily incorporated Polish Catholicism into its ideology, especially the Falangist faction.
  • the National Union in Portugal led by Prime Ministers António de Oliveira Salazar and Marcelo Caetano.
  • the National-Christian Defense League/Iron Guard of Romania, which was led by the devoutly Romanian Orthodox Corneliu Zelea Codreanu.
  • Serbian Action, an ultranationalist and clerical fascist movement, active in Serbia since 2010.
  • the Slovak People's Party (Ľudaks) in Slovakia led by President Jozef Tiso, a Catholic priest.
  • the FET y de las JONS of Spain led by Spanish Catholic Francisco Franco, which developed into National Catholicism.
  • the Silver Legion of America in the United States led by William Dudley Pelley which combined American Christianity (specifically Protestantism) with American white nationalism.

The National Union in Portugal led by Prime Ministers António de Oliveira Salazar and Marcelo Caetano is not considered Fascist by historians such as Stanley G. Payne, Thomas Gerard Gallagher, Juan José Linz, António Costa Pinto, Roger Griffin, Robert Paxton and Howard J. Wiarda, though it is considered Fascist by historians such as Manuel de Lucena, Jorge Pais de Sousa, Manuel Loff, and Hermínio Martins. One of Salazar's actions was to ban the National Syndicalists/Fascists. Salazar distanced himself from fascism and Nazism, which he criticized as a "pagan Caesarism" that did not recognise either legal or moral limits.

Francoist Spain is often cited as a critical example of clerical fascism, defined by the official state ideology of Nacionalcatolicismo (National Catholicism). This ideology was instrumental in restoring the political and social hegemony of the Catholic Church over all aspects of Spanish public life, including education, censorship, and family law.

The Croatian Ustaše regime, which ruled the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), is often cited as the most extreme manifestation of clerical fascism. The regime was characterized by a potent fusion of Croatian nationalism, fascism, and militant Catholicism, which was essential to enabling its brutal program of genocide against Serbs, Jews, and Roma.

Likewise, the Fatherland Front in Austria led by Austrian Catholic Chancellors Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt Schuschnigg is often not regarded as a fully fascist party. It has been called semi-Fascist and even imitation Fascist. The regime is a key example of a Christian Corporatist State, known as the Ständestaat. The system explicitly modeled its authoritarian political and social structure on Catholic teachings. Dollfuss was murdered by the Nazis, shot in his office by the SS and left to bleed to death. Initially, his regime received support from Fascist Italy, which formed the Stresa Front with the United Kingdom and France.

The distinctive economic model used by these states, corporatism, sought to replace liberal capitalism and class conflict with state-supervised vocational corporations. This "Third Way" economic and social system was justified by the principles outlined in the papal encyclicals Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno, which advocated for a socio-economic order based on Catholic doctrine.

Use of the term

Scholars who accept the use of the term clerical fascism debate about which of the listed examples should be dubbed "clerical fascist", with the Ustaše being the most widely included example. In the examples which are cited above, the degree of official Catholic support and the degree of clerical influence over lawmaking and government both vary. Moreover, several authors reject the concept of a clerical fascist régime, arguing that an entire fascist régime does not become "clerical" if elements of the clergy support it, while others are not prepared to use the term "clerical fascism" outside the context of what they call the fascist epoch, between the ends of the two world wars (1918–1945).

Some scholars consider certain contemporary movements forms of clerical fascism, such as Christian Identity and Christian Reconstructionism in the United States; "the most virulent form" of Islamic fundamentalism, Islamism; and Hindutva in India.