On the first day of class here in Chile, I learned that I was living in the Latin American country with the highest Human Development (HD) Index. The first thing a visitor to Chile hears about is the more-recent-than-seems-possible dictatorship, mostly because our country was instrumental in the coup that began it. Pinochet’s regime saw wide open economic development, but also universal curfews, abuse of indigenous peoples, and altogether backwardness.
Given that personal allegiances to the dictatorship, or the left, still frequent local dialogue, I was surprised to learn how quickly Chile had shed its authoritarian shackles. Not only does it have the highest HD Index on the continent, it has been in that position for a half decade. The most popular president since the dictatorship fell, Michelle Bachelet, is a divorced mother, openly agnostic, and the presumed favorite for re-election next month. Did I chose to study abroad in a country that would soon be the poster child for progress on the continent? Everything was not as it initially seemed.
During the dictatorship, it was the Catholic Church, and its famous liberation theology, that helped lift Chile from its darkest depths into a more balanced reality. I came here hoping to study the evolution of that religious phenomenon. Chile’s development remains largely economic, and the well-being of at least half of its population is a mirage. The urban malls here can compete with any shopping centers in the world, but most people who work in them have no contract and earn only tips. A lawless economy allows foreign investors to supposedly develop the country. The results are statistics that appear balanced and prosperous, but a population that is alienated from its government and the superficial goals it puts forth. I see no trace of the religious movement that was a beacon of hope under Pinochet; religious actors are absent from the public dialogue. Syndicates wield the greatest amount of power against the state, as all municipality workers in the country were recently on strike for an entire month until the authorities finally caved.
Conservative Catholic values actually help stunt Chile’s development. Recent World Health Organization statistics show that more than five out of every one hundred Chilean girls between ages 15 and 19 become pregnant and give birth. Although Chile is the home of economic segmentation even more severe than that of the United States, the teen pregnancy phenomenon does not appear to have class boundaries. At my university, one of the oldest and most expensive in the country, it is not uncommon to have classmates who are mothers of toddlers. The statistics are easily believable, too: only last year was sexual education made mandatory in public schools. For decades, the country preached abstinence and produced a growing group of young, single mothers. Condoms are more than twice the price they are in the United States, and one has to request them from behind the pharmacy counter. On any given day, one can walk through the streets and find couples in middle and high school uniforms getting intimate on public benches or in hidden alleys and staircases because teenage relationships are discouraged in conservative households.
My host family demonstrates the danger of such antiquated modes of thought. I have three host brothers here, ages 26, 12, and 11. The first has a different father than younger pair. The older brother’s father never married my host mom, and the younger brothers’ father is now divorced from her. My two younger brothers were taught that divorce and conception out of wedlock, two acts that shape the household in which they were raised, are sins. Only when their ages reached double digits did they finally accept that their half-brother might have come from the same mother.
In my theology class at the local Catholic university, the professor regularly mocks other faiths, including other sects of Christianity. At Georgetown, the Catholic identity radiates the values of equality, education, and social justice. Chilean religious institutions still perform charitable work and offer services to the poor, but the Church as an organization seems reluctant to take a stance. Chile is ripe with opportunities for social change, but the Church has taken a backseat to advocacy groups and unions. NGOs fight against the traditional Catholic influence for the rights of rape victims to access state-provided sexual health services. Instead of pushing Chile towards thorough, authentic development, the Catholic tradition is holding it back.