Latin America's military dictatorships in the 1970s produced some of the worst human rights abuses in the Americas in the twentieth century. The Catholic Church was positioned to denounce the repression, yet the episcopacy's reaction varied by country. Why? In critiquing a prominent claim that competition from Protestant sects was the primary source of this variation, the article argues instead that the history of Church–state relations in a given country represents a path-dependent process presenting different incentives to Church episcopacies when they are faced with state violations of human rights. Where Church–state ties are close, episcopacies are not expected to publicly denounce the state. Where a strict separation between Church and state exists, denunciations of abuse are expected to be more forthcoming. This argument is illustrated with a comparison of Church–state relations in Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Uruguay and re-assessed using a broader regional sample.