Though 72 percent of its population is Catholic, Chile looks at many times to be quite secular, and at other times quite Catholic. Spontaneous shrines, often markers of a tragic death, dot the country’s roadsides with crosses and religious statues. Hundreds of thousands journey to Marian feasts held throughout the country. On issues like abortion and same-sex marriage, Chileans have recently reversed prior legal bans. In recent years, even since some of the articles here were published, revelations of clergy sexual abuse have radically undermined the Church's credibility there, and the church's influence on the ground is seriously diminished.
National Demographics
- 1 United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2018). World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision, Online Edition.
- 2 United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Trends in International Migrant Stock: The 2015 revision.
- 3 United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, Homicide Statistics 2015.
- 4 Transparency International, Corruption Perceptions Index 2016.
- 5 World Economic Forum, The Global Gender Gap Report, 2016.
- 6 UNICEF, State of the World's Children, 2016.
Catholic Demographics
These statistics are derived from the Vatican's official publication, Statistical Yearbook of the Church 2020 (Vatican City: Librera Editrice Vaticana, 2022). The numbers may differ from data reported by other sources on this site.