The community of priests that live at Saint Elizabeth's and the neighbors immediately worked to extinguish the fire, which damaged the entrance doors and several windows.
Two other chapels in the city also suffered damage, including broken windows and doors.
At some of the churches, pamphlets were left behind, saying, "We will never submit to the dominion they want to exercise over our bodies, our ideas and actions because we were born free to decide the path we want to take…We are attacking with the fire of battle, making your disgusting morals explode."
The pamphlets also called for "autonomy and resistance" in the Mapuche conflict. The Mapuche are the largest indigenous group in the country. Many of them live in the region of Araucania, which Pope Francis will visit during his trip.
Chile incorporated Araucania by military conquest between 1861 and 1883, resulting in a major rift between the government and the Mapuche people. The tension continues to this day, with Mapuche communities calling for the return of ancestral lands, respect for their cultural identity, and in some cases, autonomy.
"This was a cowardly act. I'm upset, pained, because this is a poor community, a struggling community: these are people who don't know the consequence of what they're doing," the parochial vicar Fr. Marcelo Cabezas lamented.