Page "Clerical fascism" Paragraph 9

Political theorist Roger Griffin warns against the " hyperinflation of clerical fascism ".

According to Griffin, the use of the term ' clerical fascism ' should be limited to " the peculiar forms of politics that arise when religious clerics and professional theologians are drawn either into collusion with the secular ideology of fascism ( an occurrence particularly common in interwar Europe ); or, more rarely, manage to mix a theologically illicit cocktail of deeply held religious beliefs with a fascist commitment to saving the nation or race from decadence or collapse ".

Griffin adds that ‘ clerical fascism ’ " should never be used to characterize a political movement or a regime in its entirety, since it can at most be a faction within fascism ", while he defines fascism as " a revolutionary, secular variant of ultranationalism bent on the total rebirth of society through human agency ".