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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

I was going to say the Catholic Church often seems to be at the center of these regimes, but I guess we all see things through our own lens.

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Do you have rationale supporting the hand of the Church in fascist regimes? The Catholic Church expressed its rejection of fascism via the strongest possible channel: an encyclic written by Pius XI in 1937, _Mit Brennender Sorge_, was read during the Sunday mass in all churches of Germany although the Nazis were already repressing opponents.

Even more: according to statistical studies, out of many socioeconomic variables, being Catholic had the strongest positive correlation with _not_ voting for the Nazis [1].

[1]: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...

An encyclic is just a marketing material. What matters is what they actually did.

The Vatican was gifted to Church by… fascists.

>In Weimar Germany, the Catholic Church vehemently warned ordinary parishioners about the dangers of extremist parties.

Is that doing something?

Nah, that’s just talk. Doing something is cooperating with fascists (Lateran Pacts), supporting Catholic-Nazi regimes (Franco, Tiso, and many others), and helping Nazis evade justice (ratlines).

It's no different than the current day catholic church saying "oh gays are people too we should treat them nicely" and then remind you that the bible says sinners spend eternity in hellfire and sort of wink at the American evangelicals that spend their time screaming that the bible says gay people are an abomination.

Regardless of what the encyclic said, the truth is that in Spain the Church closely colaborated with the fascist Franco regime, to the point that in many practical respects they were one and the same.

There is ample evidence that you can find with some obvious Googling, but I think this image is a good visual summary:

https://www.gettyimages.es/detail/fotografía-de-noticias/gen...

This is how the Catholic Church treated Franco (not sporadically, but as a custom, you can find plenty of images like that): under a canopy, like they do with images of Saints or the Virgin.

I think in the face of that, anyone will agree that encyclic was not worth the paper it was written on.

You also has Ustasě in Croatia and Josef Tiso in Slovakia. On the other hand - although Catholic higher-ups were generally spared, not the same could be said about other priests in Poland (like Kolbe) . During 2 WW, it's hard to treat Catholicism as a one religion, because it was very important to put it into national-ideological context of the country. Most often church was supporting more conservative, right-leaning groups, as a contra to socialist, who were much more anticlerical then.

Sorry, I should have made it clear from the start that I was regarding nazy Germany and fascist Italy as the "fascist regimes", Franco's Spain being fascist is debated (seems to have changed throughout time, see [1]). Interesting point for Spain though, direct religious implication in governments always seems to go wrong.

Coming back to the encyclic, I think it did have an impact, judging by the measurable refusal of Nazism in Catholic counties as mentioned in my previous comment. The Catholic Church had strong moral authority, and this kind of condemnation was rare: the Red Cross for instance did not raise any [2].

[1]: https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=5263342 [2]: https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/misc/6ayg86....

Edit: grammar.

Germany had issues with Catholics long before III Reich. Check the Kulturkampf under Bismarck - it had a stong national element, as Catholicism was tied to Poles, and Poles and their interest in Silesia weren't exactly liked by German authoroties.

Never heard of clero-fascism? Most Catholics haven't. I guess they don't mention it often in our history books here in Europe.

You can start your education here, I know of it because its my country, but I'm sure its only the tip of the iceberg.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_clergy_involvement_wi...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_fascism

The Catholic Church worked parallel to some of those regimes, and in cooperation with others. Or completely independent in other cases.

Well, it was the biggest there at the time. Not much option for smaller religions to enforce their atrocities.

Even in democratical societies leaders tend to want to please the church so their brainwashes masses vote for them.

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