It was not a comparison it was a gentle reminder that throwing dictators names to slander your enemies when defending the Pope is unwise.
Catholic Spain has become a place with the lowest number of practicing catholics probably in Europe because the church allied themselves with Franco against the people. No one could get a job unless the priest certified that you were a catholic in good standing. The day Franco died the corrupt church died with him.
No matter how beloved Mussolini was by the US or the Vatican the Italians peopñe hung him upside down from a lampost the end of the war.
The Catholic Church has always sided with the powerful to survive that is the only important article of faith tha matters — all the rest is window dressing for the rubes.
Anti-clericalism has been in vogue since the time of Carlos III(sp), a an enlightened despot, and very effective ruler. Under his auspices, California was settled and many governmental reforms instituted. Gave Mexico probably its last decent government ;-) During the 19th and twentieth centuries, power has moved back and forth between the clericals and the anti-clerical. Unlike in England where infidelity takes the form of of a moralistic agnosticism, Latin “republicanism” is basically Jacobin in character, and takes a postivistic view of Christianity. As for Franco, don’t forget that was one savage civil war, one that wrecked the country in the way that the Vietnam war wrecked that one. Give Franco credit: he was one smart cookie who knew enough to stay out of the war. One story has it that he saw better than Mussolini—his real patron—what sort of thing Nazism was. And he had a Jewish grandmother. Spain was also fortunate in that Prince Juan Carlos was greatly underestimated by Franco. So the prince allowed himself to be manipulated but at the same time had his own plans for the future.