Chile shifts right as President Kast’s religious views draw attention

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Chile’s new president, José Antonio Kast, has taken office with openly religious views that have drawn renewed attention in a country often described as increasingly secular. Kast, who took office March 11, is a practicing Catholic and part of the Schoenstatt movement, an international community devoted to the Virgin Mary. As he begins governing, supporters and critics alike are focusing on how his faith and long-stated social positions could shape policy decisions.

In interviews and public statements described in the reporting, Kast’s religious identity is tied to his record as a conservative former lawmaker. Kast opposed the sale of the emergency contraceptive pills in 2009, and he has spoken out against same-sex marriage and abortion—positions he emphasized during his 2021 presidential bid. On election night last December, Kast told voters: “We are inviting you on a journey to recover values for a proper and healthy life,” adding that it “requires everyone’s commitment.”

Kast’s victory also set the political tone for the early expectations around his administration. He won 58% of the vote after pledging to crack down on crime and deport immigrants without legal status. The AP report frames the shift as part of a regional trend in Latin America, where 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. It also notes that Kast’s positions align in part with those of U.S. President Donald Trump, whose administration welcomed Kast’s victory.

The concerns expressed by supporters of abortion rights and LGBTQ+ rights center less on immediate changes and more on whether progress could become harder under Kast. Even if policy moves do not arrive right away, the reporting says they worry the environment for advancing their causes may deteriorate. At the same time, backers who share Kast’s religious worldview say his stated values and governing approach are reassuring.

One supporter described in the reporting, Jorge Herrera, a Catholic who belongs to Schoenstatt, said Kast gives him “a lot of confidence” and that “I share his values.” Herrera said that one of Schoenstatt’s core beliefs is that each person has a unique life mission—“God did not bring us here by chance,” he said, adding, “We exist because there is something special we are called to do.” For Herrera, support for Kast reflects both shared religious beliefs and his political vision, including the appeal of what he described as a plan for Chile.

The reporting places Kast’s faith within a broader religious landscape that has been shifting for decades. It says Chile has seen a decline in Catholic affiliation over the past two decades, alongside trends seen across Latin America. A 2024 Latinobarómetro report cited in the coverage found the proportion of Catholics across the region fell from 80% in 1995 to 54% in 2024. In Chile, the report says 45% of the population identified as Catholic, 37% said they had no religion, and about 12% identified as Protestant.

Scholars quoted in the reporting describe how institutional trust changed even as beliefs persisted. Luis Bahamondes, a religion scholar at the University of Chile, said the Catholic Church was among the most trusted institutions during the 1990s, but that 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. He added that conservative tendencies have long been evident, including Chile’s history as the last Latin American country to legalize divorce in 2004 and what he described as resistance to sex education in schools.

Bahamondes also described how religion continues to shape cultural concepts in Chilean society. He said religion classes are not mandatory in Chile, and they are optional in both public and private institutions. Still, he said, there are concepts that resonate strongly, such as “family and marriage,” which carry “a strong religious weight.” He added, “There is often talk of a crisis of Catholicism, but what is in crisis is the institution, not the belief itself.”

Kast’s specific faith community, Schoenstatt, is described as a Catholic apostolic movement devoted to the Virgin Mary. The reporting says Schoenstatt was founded in Germany in 1914 at the outset of World War I, and that it arrived in Chile in 1947 in Valparaíso, where the movement’s first shrine was built. The movement later expanded to cities including Santiago, Temuco and Concepción, and it currently claims around 10,000 followers and has more than 20 shrines, according to the AP report.

Schoenstatt’s leadership in Chile described the movement in terms of formation and daily life. Rev. Gonzalo Illanes, director of the movement in Chile, said Schoenstatt has three pillars: the formation of individuals, the connection between faith and daily life, and the central role of the Virgin Mary. Illanes said Kast has been a longtime member of the community, describing Schoenstatt as “not a political movement but a space for formation, faith and transcendence.” He also said the group emphasizes the protection of life from conception to natural death while remaining open to dialogue, saying, “The challenge is how to move forward,” and “Not to stop talking.”

As Kast prepares to govern, the reporting also describes how other leaders in the region and advocates in Chile expect his views could affect policy debates. Cristian González Cabrera, an LGBTQ-rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, said there are “valid reasons for concern” about Kast even if it might not produce an immediate rollback in the way seen with Milei in Argentina. González Cabrera described the risk as “more gradual,” including slowing progress, weakening public policies, and legitimizing anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.

Women’s and reproductive rights advocates, in the reporting, also linked their concerns to early budget and ministerial signals. Catalina Calderón, chief advocacy officer at the Women’s Equality Center, said Kast’s first measures as president included a 3% budget cut, and she argued that in the region leaders on Kast’s political side often begin with rollbacks of individual rights and women’s rights. She pointed to Argentina’s sex education funding and said Chile’s new Women and Health ministers are openly religious, adding, “That belongs to the private sphere,” but that “how that vision could shape the administration is something that should be watched closely.”