OSOBNOST BENITA MUSSOLINIHO A OBRAZ ITALSKÉHO FAŠISMU V ČESKÉM KATOLICKÉM PROSTŘEDÍ V KONTEXTU PRVNÍ REPUBLIKY

The aim of this study is to analyze the attitudes of the Czech Catholic milieu towards Italian fascism and the authoritarian leader of this movement Benito Mussolini over the years 1918–1938. Although the topic itself is appealing and intellectually stimulating, the relationship between the Czech Catholic Church and Fascism has not been systematically studied and analyzed yet. Enthusiastic Catholics were appreciative of this new dynamic movement with its spiritual anchor, morality, law and spirituality, which Fascism outwardly manifested. Over the course of the 1930s, as the relationship between Pope Pius XI and the Italian regime changed, Czech Catholics also realized that the authoritarian Fascist movement was not a third way, as it might have seemed in the mid–1920s. The study links to additional sources and literature.