Revolution, Counterrevolution, and the Catholic Church in Chile

This article traces the moral and political role of the Catholic Church in Chile from the colonial period, through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to the upheavals of the last 25 years. During the last period, conservative, reformist, revolutionary, and counterrevolutionary governments succeeded one another in power, and each sought legitimation—or at least cooperation—from the church. A pattern of increasing pluralism is traced from a nearly complete identification with the Conservative Party until the 1930s; to a choice, from the 1930s to the 1970s, between Conservatives and Christian Democrats in a state in which church and state were separated; to the movement to the left by some Catholics in the Allende period, 1970-73; to the effort by the Pinochet government after 1973 to use religion to support authoritarian government. It is argued that under the same leadership—especially that of Cardinal Raul Silva—the church has successfully maintained its defense of moral values while avoiding too close an identification with existing regimes. In the Pinochet case, the church also emerged as an active defender of human rights and the poor and provided a political space for critics of the military government.