Description
This first volume of a social history of the Catholic Church in Chile describes and interprets the historiography of bishops, priests, religious, Christian communities and lay people during the years 1973-1980 by the use of ecclesiastical primary sources and oral testimonies. In 1973, Augusto Pinochet led a military coup that had enormous repercussions for the history of Chile and for the pastoral actions of the Catholic Church led by Cardinal Silva Henriquez. This book examines the historiography of the period in the context of the universal church, the Latin American churches and the development of a very strong network of parish communities that sheltered the persecuted and defended the right of the Church to speak against a totalitarian state. Its author has used a significantly large number of unpublished and unknown primary historical sources that make this volume the most significant historical work in English for the history of the Chilean Church from the military coup to the approval of the new Chilean Constitution in 1980. It includes an examination of legal documentation related to the first findings of human remains of political prisoners at Lonquen and it analyses the role of the Church within that social process.
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