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Entry: A New Humanism in Europe Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/a_new_humanism_in_europe#6194 Post contents: The fallacy here is to assert that because Chancellor Dollfuss was attempting to implement an economic form for Austria that indicated the use of "intermediate bodies" (corporations) and that Mussolini claimed to be doing the something similar, that, voila, they somehow where doing the same thing. But this is unhistorical and incorrect. Dollfuss carefully read and digested Quadragesimon Anno (given by that same pope who issued Mit Brennender Sorge), and with the assistance of the Catholic faculties in Vienna AN D Rome, attempted to implement subsidiarity in Austria. You will recall that Mussolini, in his authored definition' of Fascism in the Enciclopedia Italiana, made the statement--I paraphrase--"nothing outside the state, nothing without the state..." This was the antithesis of what Dollfuss attempted to do in Austria. Be aware that corporativism as both an economic AND a political system can be (and has been) completetly compatible with Catholic social teaching [go back and read Quadragesimo Anno again, plus the commentaries that accompanied it]. Indeed, certainly in the formal encyclicals of both Leo XIII and Pius XII it can be considered the preferred mode of economic organization. Of course, the Church theoretically has no preference as to a republic or monarchy or even a dictatorship, as long as the rights of the Church are acknowledged. Dollfuss and the Austrian solution were praised by Pius XI and Catholic writers generally of the period. Yes, he made an alliance with Mussolini (that was, let it be stated, more directed AGAINST the Nazis, and recall that that alliance was invoked when Hitler threatened in the early 1930s). But so did Britain with Mussolini (the Stresa Front), and Churchill praised Mussolini publicly, and repeatedly. At least Dollfuss never did that. The situation posed of "browns" vs. "christian democrats" is a false dichotomy. There are and have been historically other options. A Catholic state, organized on the principle of subsidiarity and with "intermediate bodies" that both function economically and, even, politically is compatible with the historic teaching of the Church Sent at: 2008 11 22