Abstract

The article analyzes the presence and action of Cardinal Raúl Silva Henríquez, highest authority of the Catholic Church in Chile, in the founding period of the Civil Military Dictatorship led by Augusto Pinochet between 1973 and 1980. Analysis of the press, documents of the Archbishopric of Santiago, National Archive and secondary sources with the purpose of examining the voice of the Cardinal in the difficult years of the seventies. Consequently, the method is qualitative located from a hermeneutic paradigm with a documentary bibliographic design. The findings show an extraordinary repertoire of support and assistance practices of all kinds for people who are victims of violations of their human rights. These actions by different agents of the Catholic Church are unprecedented and resulted in a tense and difficult relationship between the authorities of the Civil Military Dictatorship of Chile and the Catholic Church, an institution that assumed a clear position against the regime: to be hope and voice. of the voiceless, denouncing injustice and systematic abuse of dignity and human rights.