Preparing for the Columban Centenary 2018
Columban Fr Patrick (Pat) Egan shares with The Far East his memories of a difficult period in Chilean history, the social changes of the 1960s and the brutal 1973 Military Coup. Fr Pat arrived in Chile on St Patrick’s Day, 1963, after the Columbans decided to leave the Apostolate to Seamen at the Port of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he had been assigned two years previously. In July, 2017, he will retire back home to Ireland.
The first six weeks after the Military Coup
There was a notable increase in the number of people at Sunday Masses on the Sunday following the Military Coup, which had occurred the previous Tuesday, September 11, 1973. On that morning, I remember seeing planes from the Chilean Air Force flying over the parish on their way to bomb the presidential palace. In a sense we were now at war.
This brutal Coup had been led by General Pinochet against the democratically elected government of socialist President Salvador Allende, who in 1970 had become the first Marxist ever to be openly elected in a democratic election.
Like all other priests in Santiago on the Sunday following the Coup, I read out at the Sunday Masses the statement prepared by the Archbishop of Santiago, Cardinal Raul Silva Henriquez, in response to the Coup. He called on the Military to respect human rights, to promote national reconciliation and for a quick return to democratic government. At that time we thought the military regime would last about six weeks and not the 17 years it lasted.
The new Military Regime banned all meetings in the country and abolished the parliament, political parties and all community groups. The Regime ordered all priests to make lists of participants in every parish gathering and send them on to them. The Cardinal immediately ordered the priests to disobey this order. “No way!", he said. In the first six weeks after the Coup this was the first time anyone had said “No” to Pinochet. In fact, during the dictatorship the Catholic Church was the only institution that retained its independence and autonomy.
One of the acolytes at the Columban parish in San Antonio was an active member of the Chilean Communist Party. On the day of the Coup, he heard on radio the Military promise that everyone who went back to work would be safe. So he went to the factory where he worked. Upon seeing him, a workmate warned him, “What are you doing here, aren’t you dead yet?”
With Columban help he came to my parish in Santiago, where we hid him. Fellow Columban Fr Noel Dunne was very active in helping those being persecuted to get into foreign embassies and out of the country. We made a special arrangement with the heavily guarded Mexican Embassy for him to slip inside through a side door while they were taking out their rubbish.
Social Changes and the Church during the 1960’s
In the years leading up to the Coup, it had been the Church and the Christian Democratic Party that had accompanied the tens of thousands of poor families who had migrated to Santiago during the 1960’s to escape rural poverty in the south.
They also migrated to Santiago after the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in history (magnitude 9.5 and lasting 10 minutes) had occurred in the south of Chile on the afternoon of May 22, 1960. It was followed 15 minutes later by a Tsunami with up to 25 metre waves along 1000 kilometres of coast. This tragedy left up to 6000 dead and 2,000,000 homeless out of a total national population of 7.7 million.
As these poor families moved to Santiago and squattered on private land, it was the Church that worked directly with them to gain legal recognition for their homes, access to education and health care, potable water, electricity, sewerage and paved roads. The majority of our Columban parishes began precisely in these squatter areas, working alongside the people as they struggled for better conditions. The Communists were principally concerned with Trade Unions and not with these squatters.
Then came the Coup
As the months went by following the Coup, 130,000 supporters of the Allende government were arrested. Thousands were tortured, killed and “disappeared”. Thousands of foreign experts and academics, who had worked for the Allende Government, were now in hiding, seeking amnesty in Churches all over the city. Police would stand on guard outside Churches to prevent them entering. We Columbans helped many of these to leave the country.
Three weeks after the Coup, the Catholic and Evangelical Churches along with the Jewish Community set up a Peace Committee to support people being persecuted. After receiving great pressure from the Regime, this was replaced in January 1976 by the Vicaria de la Solidaridad. This was set up by Cardinal Silva Henriquez in the Archdiocesan Offices next to the Cathedral. It defended human rights and documented violations and could resist Regime pressure better. Ordinary parishes continued much of this same work at the local level.
Parishes as centres for human rights
Throughout the years of Dictatorship, the local parish became the only neighbourhood centre available to help those persecuted by the military. If someone was arrested, their family would rush to the parish for help. We priests knew we had to drop everything and go as quickly as possible to the local police station and demand to see the arrested person. If we did not see them, then the person could become “disappeared”.
Pinochet complained many times that the Church was against him. Of course he was right but we could not admit it at the time. Parishes were the only free places where people could meet and express themselves. Banned political parties from the Left met clandestinely as parish groups in an unspoken agreement with us. For example, the Parish Theatre Group in my parish, that met weekly, was really a front for the Socialist Party. In our neighbouring parish, the Communist Party met as the Parish Guitar Club and in the next parish it was MAPU, a small Leftist Action Party that met as the Parish Youth Group.
Early on, the Church excommunicated anyone who was involved with torture. Each parish office had a large poster outlying what excommunication involved - no receiving Holy Communion and the other sacraments etc. This did not seem to bother very much some of the military involved in torture. What did bother them, however, was finding out that being excommunicated meant they could not become godfathers at baptisms. This really hurt!
Summary
Since the return to democracy in 1990, new challenges have emerged that the Church must confront. Our Columban mission in Chile today, as part of the Church confronts new challenges such as indifference to faith, consumerism, individualism, social injustices, ecological problems and a loss of a sense of community service.
Just as in the difficult times of the dictatorship, we know that the Spirit of God will continue to guide us in our mission into future decades.
Columban Fr Patrick Egan spoke with Fr Daniel Harding, the Editor of The Far East magazine on a recent visit to Chile.
Related Links
- Read more from The Far East - June 2017
