Political Catholicism - Catholic Movements in The 20th Century

Catholic Movements in The 20th Century

In the 20th century, Catholic political movements became very strong in Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Ireland, France and Latin America. What these movements had in common was a defense of the acquired rights of the Catholic Church (attacked by anticlerical politicians) and a defense of Christian faith and moral values (threatened by increasing secularization). Members of opposing schools of thought called such attempts clericalism.

These Catholic movements developed various forms of Christian democratic ideology. Many criticized unrestrained capitalism and instead promoted concepts of Christian socialism. Freemasons were seen mainly as enemies and vehement opponents of political catholicism. Special situation happened in Mexico, where rigid atheists ruled in 1920s and completely oppressed Church and Catholics, what led to open Christian revolution of 1926 to 1929, known as Cristero War.

Some of the earliest important political parties were:

• Conservative Catholic Party of Switzerland – 1848,
• Catholic Party (Belgium) – 1869,
• Centre Party (Germany) – with origins in 1870,
• Christian Social Party (Austria) – 1893,
• Popular Liberal Action in France - 1901,
• General League of Roman Catholic Caucuses (Netherlands) - 1904, transformed into the Roman Catholic State Party in 1926,
• Slovak People's Party - 1918,
• Croatian Popular Party - 1919,
• Italian People's Party – 1919,
• Polish Christian Democratic Party - 1919,
• Bavarian People's Party - 1919,
• National League for the Defense of Religious Liberty in Mexico - 1924.

Most of these parties in Europe joined together in White International (1922). Franco's mixture of catholicism and nationalism received its own brand of National Catholicism and it inspired similar movement throughout Europe.

In addition to political parties, Catholic/Christian trade unions were created, which fought for worker's rights: the earliest include:

• Typographic Workers Trade Union in Spain (1897);
• Solidarity in South Africa (1902);
• Confederation of Christian Trade Unions in Belgium (1904);
• Catholic Workers Union in Mexico (1908);
• International Federation of Christian Trade Unions (IFCTO), in The Hague in 1920 (which was preceded by the International Secretariat of Christian Trade Unions founded in Zürich in 1908, led through the World Confederation of Labour (WCL) to today's International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC));
• French Confederation of Christian Workers (1919);
• Luxembourg Confederation of Christian Trade Unions (1921);
• Young Christian Workers in Belgium (1924);
• Catholic Worker Movement in the USA (from 1933).

After World War II, more unions were formed, including:

• Italian Confederation of Workers' Trade Unions (from 1950);
• Christian Trade Union Federation of Germany (from 1959);
• Christian Workers' Union in Belize (from 1963);
• Solidarity in Poland (from 1980).

Until the Second Vatican Council, the Church did not tend to completely accept the model of modern democracy and its expansion into social and economic realms because it was wary of anticlerical socialistic tendencies. When Catholic social activists became too extreme in social conflicts, the Church hierarchy tried to stop their excesses; occasions of this included the Worker-priest movement in France in the 1940s and 1950s, and liberation theology in Latin America in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. But some movements were strongly supported by the Church, likewise Catholic Social Studies Movement in Australia in the 1940s and 1950s, from which National Civic Council has developed.

Catholic clergy and lay activists, often tended to support far-right leaders such Francisco Franco and António de Oliveira Salazar, as well as the military regimes in Latin America. As a result, many workers involved in the labor movement joined social democratic and communist parties, which were sometimes secular and called for revolution against "old" values, including religion and the Church.

In the newest time, after Second World War, Christian engagement in politics became weaker and even "Demo-Christian" parties by name lost some of their Christianity. Stronger Christian involvement in Europe on the beginning of 21st century show some new and small parties, such are for example those joined in the European Christian Political Movement.