Catholic Church falls into line with Right, maintains conservative worldview
Gilad Nathan, YNET
Up until the period following World War II, the Catholic Church was a central element in the European conservative camp in particular, and in the global one in general. The support offered to radical conservatism and the fight against the modern doctrines of liberalism and socialism brought the Catholic Church to a nadir of cooperation with fascist and autocratic dictatorships, stemming from a clear preference for undemocratic and non-socialist regimes.
The relative liberalism and the Church’s openness from the 1960s and onward were a result of the Church recognizing the damage it suffered by cooperating with regimes such as Franco’s in Spain or Mussolini’s in Italy. In particular, the Vatican’s ambivalent attitude to Nazism undermined the Church’s moral authority. CONTINUE
