Chile

A scathing criticism of the complicity of the Chilean Catholic Church in the coup that overthrew Salvador Allende in September 1973. A criticism which, in the present strong backlash against globalization and in the context of a Catholic Church whose leader, Pope Francis takes a very strong stand against a system that excludes and marginalizes, remains very relevant in our present world. Ovide Bastien argues that while it is true that the Chilean Catholic Church, under the leadership of Cardinal Silva Henríquez, played an impressive and very important role in helping the persecuted and providing a refuge where political and community organizations were able to survive and reorganize, it also provided ideological and practical support to the dictatorship of Pinochet, and this, contrary to what many claim, not only in the first months following the coup.