Unione Nazionale was a pro-fascist

Fascism

Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...

 Italian Catholic

Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

 political party during the 1920s, the first of several "Clerico-Fascist

Clerical fascism

Clerical fascism is an ideological construct that combines the political and economic doctrines of fascism with theology or religious tradition...

" political organizations established within the decade. The party was established with the permission of Pope Pius XI

Pope Pius XI

Pope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was Pope from 6 February 1922, and sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 until his death on 10 February 1939...

, dealing the final blow to the anti-fascist Catholic Italian People's Party

Italian People's Party (1919–1926)

The Italian People's Party was a Christian-democratic political party in Italy.It was founded in 1919 by Luigi Sturzo, a Catholic priest. The PPI was backed by Pope Benedict XV to oppose the Italian Socialist Party...

.

The Unione Nazionale's membership primary came from aristocratic and pro-monarchist Catholics in Turin

Turin

Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

, Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

, and Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

, along with members of the Black Nobility

Black Nobility

The Black Nobility are Roman aristocratic families who sided with the Papacy under Pope Pius IX after the Savoy family-led army of the Kingdom of Italy entered Rome on September 20, 1870, overthrew the Pope and the Papal States, and took over the Apostolic Palace, and any nobles subsequently...

. These groups represented over half of the signatories of the party's April 1923 manifesto. Pollard describes the Unione Nazionale as "essentially an aristocratic clique". Its manifesto credited fascism with the goal of establishing "a lasting social Christian and Italian order".

According to the pro-Fascist Il Momento of Turin, the party was notorious for its "hostility towards the works and towards trade union

Trade union

A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

 organizations".

The Unione Nazionale, and the similar Centro Nazionale, supported the Fascist list in the March 1929 elections, only to virtually disappear from the political map after the conclusion of the Lateran treaties

Lateran treaties

The Lateran Treaty is one of the Lateran Pacts of 1929 or Lateran Accords, three agreements made in 1929 between the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy See, ratified June 7, 1929, ending the "Roman Question"...

. The Centro Nazionale dissolved in the summer of 1930, leaving the Unione Nazionale as the sole remaining "Clerico-Fascist" political party.