Chile
POPULATION 15,402,000
ROMAN CATHOLIC 77 percent
EVANGELICAL PROTESTANT 12 percent
OTHER PROTESTANT 1 percent
ATHEIST/NONRELIGIOUS 6 percent
OTHER 4 percent
Country Overview
Introduction
Chile, on the western coast of South America, is long (2,880 miles from north to south) and narrow (only 265 miles wide at its widest point). It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the east by the Andes Mountains. Geographically inaccessible and lacking the gold and silver reserves of colonial settlements to the north, Chile began its modern history as one of Spain's most neglected colonial outposts.
The region never possessed a large indigenous population, as did Mexico or the Northern Andean territory. Demographically, therefore, Chile is the most ethnically homogeneous country in Latin America, comprised mostly of Spanish immigrants, with some Germans and Croats, who brought their Catholic faith. While some mixing with the indigenous Mapuche population did occur, the ethnic flavor of Chile remained largely European. For these reasons, religious evangelization had not been a strong priority for the Catholic Church until the latter half of the twentieth century.
The rapid growth of evangelical Protestantism began in the 1930s and resulted in large part from the pastoral neglect of the Catholic clergy.
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