Declarações da Conferência Episcopal do Chile durante o governo de Salvador Allende: tensões com Cristãos pelo Socialismo

Abstract

This article aims to examine the views of the Chilean Catholic Church during the administration of President Salvador Allende. The main themes that arise from the declarations of the bishops will be addressed and the ethical-theological implications of the relationship between religion and politics in the current context will be analyzed. The central axis of the article is to analyze the vision of the bishops towards the Marxist/socialist ideology from the historical and theological analysis of the government of Salvador Allende and the configuration of Christians for Socialism. The bishops’ statements show a critical position towards the Marxist/socialist ideology, seen as synonymous in a discursive strategy of the church hierarchy to disqualify the government and the left-leaning of Catholics. The article is based on a classic analysis of texts, which uses internal and external analysis of episcopal documents between 1970 and 1974, together with a bibliographical review on the historical period.