This chapter reconstructs the interplay between Catholic social ideas in the Italian political economy after WWII. Due to the political proximity of the Vatican and the fascist regime, Italian social Catholicism developed stronger corporatist positions than its German counterpart. The absence of a Protestant–liberal counterweight in Italian Christian Democracy facilitated a stronger embrace of corporatism for the reconstruction of the Italian economy after WWII. After the 1950s, the Italian welfare state and industrial relations, initially based on Catholic social ideas, were increasingly used as a clientelist exchange platform by the Christian Democrats. The fragmented welfare state played a major role in these exchanges. The Italian postwar welfare state therefore initially resulted from the implementation of Catholic social teaching ideas, but the very same institutions were later further expanded and fragmented as a clientelist vote-seeking reservoir. The first part of the chapter follows the ideational development of Catholic social teaching in the first half of the twentieth century, arguing that the political relationship between the Vatican and the fascist regime influenced it profoundly. The second part shows how post-WWII Catholic social teaching evolved within the Christian Democratic party. The third part analyzes the extent to which Catholic doctrine found its way into social legislation in the 1950s and 1960s.