Chile’s new president Jose Antonio Kast has joined a growing list of right-leaning Latin American leaders. Not only is he conservative, he’s openly religious as well.
Kast, who took office on March 11, is a practicing Catholic and part of the Schoenstatt movement, an international community devoted to Virgin Mary. As a staunchly conservative former lawmaker, the 60-year-old father of nine opposed the sale of the emergency contraceptive pills in 2009. He has also spoken out against same-sex marriage and abortion, positions he emphasised during his 2021 presidential bid.
“We are inviting you on a journey to recover values for a proper and healthy life,” Kast said on election night last December. “It requires everyone's commitment.” Supporters of abortion rights and LGBTQ+ rights are wary as Kast takes office. Even if there are no immediate policy changes, they worry that it will be more difficult to make advances with their causes.
Kast won 58 per cent of the vote after pledging to crack down on crime and deport immigrants without legal status. As part of a broader regional trend, other conservative leaders such as El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele and Argentina's Javier Milei have risen to power on different priorities, including security and economic reform.
Kast's positions also align in part with those of US President Donald Trump, whose administration welcomed his victory.
Chile has seen a decline in Catholic affiliation in the past two decades, along with other Latin American countries. According to a 2024 Latinobarometro report, the proportion of Catholics across the region fell from 80 per cent in 1995 to 54 per cent in 2024.
In Chile, 45 per cent of the population identified as Catholic while 37 per cent said they had no religion and about 12 per cent identified as Protestant.
According to Luis Bahamondes, a religion scholar at the University of Chile, the Catholic Church was one of the country's most trusted institutions during the 1990s. However, a series of social transformations and sexual abuse scandals eroded that perception. “It became one of the most questioned institutions and one of the least trusted,” Bahamondes said. Still, he added, conservative tendencies in the country have long been evident.
Chile was the last country in Latin America to legalise divorce in 2004, Bahamondes recalled. More recently, he said, there has been resistance to sex education in schools. Religion classes are not mandatory in Chile. They are optional in both public and private institutions.
“There are still concepts that resonate strongly in Chilean society — such as family and marriage — which carry a strong religious weight,” Bahamondes said. “There is often talk of a crisis of Catholicism, but what is in crisis is the institution, not the belief itself.” Kast and his wife are part of Schoenstatt, a Catholic apostolic movement devoted to the Virgin Mary. It was founded in Germany in 1914, at the outset of World War I.
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