Moral Opposition to Authoritarian Rule in Chile, 1973-90 (review)

The repression ushered in by the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile led to the birth of one of the most remarkable human rights organizations in recent history: the Vicariate of Solidarity. Established by Cardinal Raul Silva of the Archdiocese of Santiago, the Vicariate proved to be virtually the sole opposition group capable of functioning publicly during the first brutal decade of the Pinochet regime. Its mere survival was due in no small measure to its ecclesiastical status—it was the first human rights ofþce ever established under the direct auspices of the Roman Catholic Church.

Pamela Lowden ably recounts and analyzes the story of this singular organization in Moral Opposition to Authoritarian Rule in Chile, 1973–90. Lowden’s central premise is that the Vicariate embodied a moral opposition to the Pinochet regime, an opposition in which moral issues were not only explicit but constituted the very raison d’etre of the organization. In contrast to a partisan political agenda, the Vicariate’s goal throughout the seventeen long years of dictatorship remained simply the realization of a Chilean state and society in which the natural rights of citizens were respected. That it pursued this goal with the full resources and moral authority of the Catholic Church, in a predominantly Catholic country, made the Vicariate a formidable opponent to a military regime that otherwise brooked no opposition.

September 1973 was not a propitious moment for human rights in Chile. Led by Army General Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean military had instigated a bloody coup which resulted in the death of democratically-elected Socialist President Salvador Allende and signaled a brutal end to Chile’s “peaceful road to socialism.” The military regime that ensued shocked the conscience of the world with its systematic practice of torture, forced disappearances, and other terror tactics. In the days following the coup, religious leaders in Santiago banded together to form what they called “the Committee of Cooperation for Peace.” Offering direct assistance to the victims of the coup, this ecumenical endeavor drew support from a wide range of churches. Church-state relations were not entirely adversarial at this time, and an understanding evolved whereby the religious leaders accepted the legitimacy of the new military government and the government allowed the churches to pursue their pastoral and humanitarian activities.

Originally meant to provide assistance of short-term duration, the mandate of the Committee for Peace evolved as did the realization that the military had no plans to return to the barracks and relinquish control to a civilian government. In addition to filing habeas corpus petitions on behalf of the detained and disappeared, the Committee went on to establish health centers, employment cooperatives, and soup kitchens in the poorest districts of Santiago. By April 1974, the Chilean Catholic Conference of Bishops began openly criticizing the regime’s abuses of power, and Church-state relations deteriorated rapidly. Military efforts to divide the interdenominational religious coalition eventually succeeded, and in November 1975 Pinochet forced the closure of the Committee for Peace.

Several weeks later, Cardinal Silva struck back, announcing the establishment of the Vicariate of Solidarity as a distinctly Catholic ministry. The move was unprecedented in the history of the Catholic Church: never before had the Catholic hierarchy assumed such a direct role in the defense of human rights. The circumstances may have demanded no less. Two years of military dictatorship had served to convince the Chilean bishops that the egregious human rights violations by the junta, far from being aberrations, instead constituted the very modus operandi of the regime. It had also become painfully clear that a loosely-organized ecumenical coalition was not adequate to the task of successfully confronting an adversary as unyielding and as sophisticated as the junta. Lowden correctly observes that the Vicariate functioned and survived only because it was protected by the full hierarchical authority of the Catholic Church. Pinochet proved incapable of directly attacking the Vicariate as he had the Committee for Peace because...