The Catholic Social Teaching as the Ideological Basis of the Sinarquista Movement in Mexico

Abstract

The article defines the place of the Catholic social teaching in the ideology of the National Synarchist Union, which was founded in May 1937 and served as the mass base of the counterrevolutionary and right-wing conservative movement in Mexico in the 1930s and 1940s. Considering society as a single organism that needs protection from all encroachments of leftist forces, the Sinarquists turned to be supporters of corporatism and cessation of class struggle. They believed that private property is the basis of human freedom and the means for practical realization of the principle of the common good. They also sought a fair distribution of national wealth, as well as to build a society of propertied and free people.