In considering the Catholics of the conservative movement, their Catholicism should not be so much taken into consideration in that what they advocate does not find its roots in Catholicism. The value of labor and the literalness of the text is still closer to Calvinism than to Catholicism (as what one would see in reading Max Weber's The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism).
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If so, and Mussolini's corrupt regime actually was able to shift the Church's ideology, perhaps we may find the roots in its shift over to the Protestant/Capitalist(/Fascist) work ethic. Here we may have an epochal moment where the Catholics become adherents to the 'new' ideological notions that "Work Shall Set You Free".
After all, when I think of historical Conservative Catholics (Torquemada, Savonarola, St. Bernard), I think of Inquisitions and Crusades. What was the Shoa for the Catholic Church (which lent support to the Fascists) but a newly justified inquisition? What is the current 'war against Terror' but a tacit Crusade (Bush has even called it as much!)?
Though there is a change in ideology, the reality remains the same. As with neo-liberalism, the desired change comes about through proxies like nation-states and monetary policy, and not through Catholic wrath or colonialization.