Progressive Chile

by Robert E. Mansfield

The sanctity of the church is considered forbidden ground to all those who attempt to portray the life and customs of the people of any country. To criticise religious forms or customs is to incur the displeasure, arouse the combative spirit and the resentful nature of the communicants of the church under discussion. It means to bring down upon the head of the offending scribe the wrath of those who have found consolation in the church. Religious views and ideas, with prejudices deep rooted and strong, are generally inherited.

Believing that there is good in all churches, that the Christian religion is the foundation upon which the superstructure of good society and modern civilization is based, the writer wishes to preface his comments on the Church in Chile, with the statement that it is not the purpose to criticise the Christian religion, but to point out some of the peculiar, and what would seem to the disinterested observer, objectionable practices in the dominating church.

The Catholic religion has been so closely interwoven in the fabric of Chilean history that it forms a feature of every chapter in the Republic’s record. It is impossible to accurately describe the life and customs of the country, and at the same time omit so important an influence as that exercised by the church on the political and social life of Chile.

Article 4 of the constitution (1833), says: “La Religion de la República de Chile és la Católica Apostólica Romana, con exclusión del ejercicio publico de cualquiera otra.” (The religion of the Republic of Chile is the Roman Catholic Apostolic with the exclusion of the public exercise of whatever other.)

Under constitutional authority the public exercise of all religious worship, except the Catholic, was excluded from Chile until 1865, when the right was conceded to establish non-Catholic schools within private property, and to be supervised by a Catholic board. Later came another innovation in the civil register law.

In Chile the State sanctions, helps to support and maintain the Catholic church, and the church participates in politics and the affairs of state. Reaching out through its various ramifications the church extends its influence to the farthest limits of the country, both socially and politically. The union of Church and State is strong, and the day seems far distant when they will be divorced. Able and courageous men, individually and in party groups, have tried to loosen the hold Catholicism has on Chile, and have in some instances weakened its influence upon the body politic, but it is still powerful. President Balmaceda endeavored to separate Church and State, not by destroying the church, but by directing each in its legitimate channel. The result was defeat, revolution, disaster and death.

One of the Popes said concerning the Catholic church: “Its catholicity is its credentials to Divine origin and authority.” It is not the intention of the writer to challenge this statement, but the broad, liberal Catholic idea would seem to suggest that the influence of the church should be directed along lines laid down in the Divine Law, and not exerted in an effort to control political policies.

It is not the purpose to discuss here the individual merits of the clergy, but to consider it as a body politic, its influence for weal or woe with the people and upon the nation. It is a significant fact that every law on the statute books tending to secure greater liberty of action, freedom of thought and speech, has been opposed by the political element of the church. Such progressive measures as the civil register law, providing for a public record of births, deaths and marriages, and requiring civil marriage ceremonies; the establishment and maintenance of public and private schools, and the designation of non-Catholic cemeteries, where Protestants might receive burial, have received the opposition of the clergy.

To try to lift the veil and look into the private lives of the clergy would seem little less than sacrilege. It would reveal acts pure and noble, lives worthy of example and emulation, and it would also show startling and shocking scenes enacted in the name of religion. There are those who are sacrificing their lives in the cause of the Master, others living vicious and licentious lives under the cloak of Christianity. The illiteracy and superstition of the people give to the unworthy and insincere opportunities to practice deception and imposition. Upon the other hand, these same conditions afford an ample field and unlimited opportunities for good, with those who are conscientious and possess the true Christian spirit.

There are more than ten thousand monks of different orders in Chile. During the summer months they go about the country in pairs or in trios, holding mission services, which they conduct without price or reference to money. The expenses of these itinerant clergymen are paid from the funds of the order they represent. They do much good in the way of instructing the poor country and village people in the rudiments of civilized life, cleanliness, and how to rear their children. These mission services usually continue for a week or ten days in one place, during which time many of the women and children of the community remain about the church, sleeping upon the ground at night. These mission fathers in no way clash with the regular priests, everything being understood and prearranged. Medallions and colored prints of their patron saints are freely distributed, and never fail to create a pleasing effect upon the women and children. The children are gathered into classes and turned over to the more intelligent of the women of the church, who teach them the catechism, and to sing the chants. If the children appear indifferent, or especially stupid in these first instructions and church discipline, their minds are brightened and their memories sharpened by whacks with a stick in the hands of the monks. But alas, these poor children only memorize the printed prayers, no explanations of their true meaning being made, and so through life they go on repeating prayers without knowing the significance of the words. Not infrequently this smattering of an education, gained through the mission teachings of the traveling monks, is all that many of them receive. It is through these methods of early instruction that the prolific growth of superstition prevalent in Chile is cultivated and kept alive. Children are taught that the several saints on the calendar, the anniversary of each of which is celebrated with a religious feast, are all powerful, and that the good offices of the saints can be secured through the intermediary of the priests.