Catholics and Politics in Chile in the Second Half of the XXth Century

Abstract

In the context of the Cold War and open-mindedness of the Church to the world, the relationships between the Church and the State had progressed toward more complementarities or more tensions depending on the political color of the President of the Republic. In the late forties, the Chilean Catholic Church was open to the “social question” while the Chilean State began a period of reforms and transformations sometimes under the United States influence. Nevertheless, in the late sixties, a part of the Christians supported more radical political projects. The Coup and the dictatorship had divided once again the Catholics and the Church; however, the Catholic hierarchy was frontally opposed to the general Pinochet who had looked for an evangelical support. The restoration of the democracy in 1990 coincided with a change of international context, the end of the Eastern bloc and the secularization of the society. In Chile, the bishops returned to purely religious activities. This article discusses the political evolution of the Chilean Catholics in terms of the Cold War and post-Cold War. Finally, the different levels of the Catholics Church (hierarchy, congregations, priests) and their political nuances will be analyzed.