The Dissident Cross: The Catholic Church and Political Confrontation in Cuba (full text)

Aunque había anunciado que presentaría, este trabajo dividido en cuatro partes, les presento (en primicia del blog Gaspar, El Lugareño) el paper "The Dissident Cross: The Catholic Church and Political Confrontation in Cuba" by Robert A. Portada III, PhD in Political Science (University of Notre Dame, In, 2009), de manera completa (debido a que varios se han comunicado solicitando que sea de esta manera).

Este texto es una síntesis de la disertación que escribió Portada, para obtener su grado académico en ND.

Entre los numerosos valores de este trabajo se encuentran las entrevistas que pudo realizar Portada en Cuba (y fuera de ella), a personas con diversos criterios y relacionadas de manera diferente tanto con la Iglesia católica, como con el llamado proceso revolucionario cubano.

Conocí a Portada en el año 2004 en una de sus visitas a Cuba, y luego desde 2005, tuve la oportunidad de colaborar en alguna medida en este trabajo, fundamentalmente sugiriéndole bibliografia y en la coordinación de varias de las entrevistas.

Le agradezco a Robert A. Portada III, que comparta el resultado de su labor con los lectores del blog, Gaspar, El Lugareño.

Recomiendo esta investigación sobre la relación Iglesia Católica- Sociedad Cubana contemporánea (específicamente en el área de la disidencia/oposición al gobierno), tema del que mucho se especula, pero del que escasean las aproximaciones en serio. Les dejo a Uds. el análisis, las opiniones coincidentes y los puntos de vistas que difieran de las conclusiones a las que llega el autor de este trabajo.

Esperemos que no se haga esperar la publicación en forma de libro de la disertación The Dissident Cross: The Catholic Church and Political Confrontation in Cuba" by Robert A. Portada III (University of Notre Dame, 2009).

Gaspar, El Lugareño

----------------------------------------------------

The Dissident Cross: The Catholic Church and Political Confrontation in Cuba

Paper Presented at the Bildner Center for Western Hemispheric Studies.
The Graduate Center, CUNY. April 23, 2009

by Robert A. Portada III, PhD in Political Science (University of Notre Dame, In, 2009)

Abstract


A great deal of scholarly attention has been focused on the role of the Catholic Church in leading the fight against authoritarianism in Latin America and elsewhere. However, there has been relatively less attention paid to how confrontational church strategies have changed over time. Focusing on the contemporary case of the Cuban Catholic Church, I use evidence gathered from extensive fieldwork in Cuba to create a new set of definitions that distinguishes between strategies of direct and indirect confrontation and in so doing offer a new framework for comparative theory about religion and contentious politics.

This article constitutes a close examination of the Cuban Catholic Church based on original research conducted in Cuba, a case for which few political scientists have devoted rigorous academic attention, especially for comparative study. The arguments and evidence presented here demonstrate not only the importance of the institutional independence of the Cuban Catholic Church and its innovative confrontational strategy for the development of dissident movements in Cuba, but how vital the church and its laity will be in the building of democratic institutions and a democratic political culture should Cuba transition toward democracy in the near future.

Introduction

Around the globe, religious institutions and religiously based social movements often mobilize opponents of authoritarian regimes. A great deal of scholarly attention has focused on the role of the Catholic Church in leading the fight against authoritarianism and communism in many Latin American and Eastern European countries, a direction that in Latin America at least prompted these churches to leave their traditional, conservative roles behind and move in a more politically progressive direction. Though scholars have debated the factors that led some national churches to move into opposition while others remained loyal to authoritarian states, there has been relatively less attention paid to how churches have responded to different kinds of authoritarian regimes and how confrontational church strategies have changed over time. Focusing on the contemporary case of the Cuban Catholic Church, I use evidence gathered from extensive fieldwork in Cuba to create a new set of definitions that distinguishes between strategies of direct confrontation and indirect confrontation, and in so doing offer a new framework for comparative theory about religion and contentious politics.

First, I argue that a political opportunity opened in the early 1990s that allowed the Cuban Catholic Church to adopt a confrontational posture in a favorable environment. The causes of this development can be traced to the structural reconfiguration of both Cuba’s international position and its domestic political environment at the time, which began with the collapse of the Soviet Union and extended through the revolutionary regime’s worst economic crisis during the 1990s. The Cuban Catholic Church strongly condemned the course taken by the new revolutionary regime from 1959-1962, and was subsequently marginalized while suffering severe losses to its clergy, its faithful on the island, and its institutional resources. Though Cuban church leaders harbored a contentious sentiment toward the revolutionary government since its inception, it was not until the regime found itself in a comparatively weakened position 30 years later that church leaders chose to re-enter the realm of contentious politics. By choosing to act contentiously in favorable environments, the Cuban Catholic Church has displayed a cautious approach to contention, its strategy varying with corresponding changes to the prevailing political environment.

Second, I argue that the Cuban Catholic Church’s politically contentious strategy can be characterized as one of indirect confrontation. Cuban church leaders have sought to formulate a strategy that simultaneously serves their institutional, moral, and political interests. Though offering broad solidarity with dissident activists, the Cuban Church has not explicitly aligned itself with any dissident group that might put its institutional integrity in danger. Rather, it recognizes with solidarity the overall aims of the dissidents, such as peaceful political reform and a broader extension of human rights. Furthermore, while maintaining this distance from dissident social movements, church leaders do not directly criticize the Cuban government, the Cuban Communist Party (PCC), or iconic political figures like Fidel and Raul Castro. Instead, certain features of authoritarian rule are criticized, including the lack of political pluralism, the state-controlled economy that eliminates private property, and the absence of a legal, nongovernmental civil society. Cuban church leaders are promoting a democratic political culture within their temples without calling for the outright downfall of the government. Yet, they call on their laity to stay active in the political life of the nation.

In this way the Cuban Church is outsourcing dissidence to laypersons that are called upon to act as part of their Christian social duty. This strategy is meant to insulate church leaders from charges that they are conspiring against the Cuban government. By choosing to indirectly confront the state, the Cuban Church is promoting a Christian morality, mobilizing its faithful to engage in political activities, and protecting its institutional integrity.

A church that responds to changing opportunity structures and carefully chooses its methods of confrontation can be characterized as a strategically oppositional institution. The Cuban Catholic Church has become an innovator in church strategy in a region where the once hegemonic social influence of the Catholic Church has eroded significantly. It operates rationally through the rubric of contention, going as far as the prevailing political climate will allow without risking government encroachment. Cuban church leaders have demonstrated a willingness to respond to changes in the domestic political climate as well as international forces that have impacted events on the island, by both intensifying their contentious behavior at opportune moments and moderating such behavior when the government exerts more control over social activities. The Cuban Catholic Church has become symbolically associated with many dissident movements and assisted their activities but has not explicitly aligned itself with or endorsed a specific organization, demonstrating that the church’s institutional interests will supersede its willingness to assist political movements.

This paper is based primarily on original field research conducted in Cuba while it was still under the leadership of Fidel Castro’s regime. The interviews used in this study were conducted in Cuba, with its participants speaking in a revolutionary Cuban context, with all its political, social, and cultural pressures, constructs, and discursive cadences. One of the difficult tasks in interpreting what the interviewees were saying was to stay aware of the myriad of pressures imposed by conducting research in a Cuban context, the one in which the members of the Cuban Catholic Church must operate. Moreover, an additional value of many of these interviews is contained in the instances in which interviewees shared views that are not normally disclosed in public settings.

This paper is organized as follows: I first examine the church in the initial years of the Cuban Revolution, focusing on the period from 1959 to 1962 when the Cuban Catholic Church and the revolutionary regime were in a directly confrontational relationship. I then outline the characteristics of a strategy of indirect confrontation, and demonstrate how contentious church behavior changed in the 1990s. I follow with an analysis of the relationship between the Cuban Church and the dissident opposition and conclude with an examination of the Cuban government perspective on the Cuban Church’s contentious strategy.

The Church and the Regime: Direct Confrontation

The Cuban Catholic Church is the only non-revolutionary independent national institution operating in revolutionary Cuba. Historically a privileged institution, the Cuban Catholic Church was perceived by many as a foreign, elitist church up to the revolutionary period. Following the triumph of the revolutionary forces on New Year’s Day 1959, Cuban church officials found themselves both the patrons of churches experiencing rising attendance and the leaders of the country’s most prominent religious institution when religion was becoming the logical motivator for opposition to the new revolution. The Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, Mons. Pérez y Serantes, praised the rebels and expressed confidence that they would return democracy to Cuba. But subsequent developments led to hardened divisions between Cuban Catholics and Cuban revolutionaries. In the years that followed, many of the clergy left for Miami along with the upper classes to which they had traditionally ministered. Though Catholic and Protestant churches initially lent official support to the new government, even the church leaders that had consistently advocated the rebel cause such as Mons. Pérez y Serantes were soon forced to abandon their hopes for a return to democracy. For a short time, the priests and Catholics who remained in Cuba led the minority of voices that opposed the triumphant, consolidating, and supremely popular regime steamrolling toward left-wing authoritarianism. Their voices were swiftly silenced by a new revolutionary government that would prove intolerant of all forms of directly confrontational opposition.

The issues that created this division between the church and the regime were basic: the most important position for the Catholic Church during the Cold War was its fundamental stance against communism. Tensions mounted over the rapid pace of social reform and the deepening of relations between the new regime and the USSR. The hierarchy began linking these and any proposed reforms too radical for its liking to what it described as a systemic move toward Russian-style communism. In August 1960, any semblance of optimism in church-state relations imploded when the Cuban bishops collectively issued a letter condemning communism and the relationship between Cuba and the USSR, and calling on the Cuban government to do the same.

To Cuban church leaders and most Catholic institutions before the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), acceptance of Marxist ideology entailed embracing atheism, a nonnegotiable position for the church. Before Vatican II the international church had envisioned no theology or practical doctrine for cooperation with a communist regime. The Cuban Church upheld a position that it would have no contact, much less cooperation, with a communist government so as not to lend legitimacy to the new Marxist regime. The government in turn employed a propaganda campaign to delegitimize the church as foreign, elitist, and a supporter of counterrevolutionaries. The new regime’s nationalization of industry and social services included Catholic schools and hospitals.

An August 1960 pastoral from the Conference of Cuban Catholic Bishops (COCC) stated, “We condemn communism,” and excoriated the dictatorial regime for turning the Cuban population into veritable slaves. By this time the United States had already recalled its ambassadors and imposed economic sanctions on Cuba. In April 1961, the Bay of Pigs Invasion cemented the fault-lines between the Cuban Catholic Church and the Cuban regime. Catholic priests that had already left Cuba served as chaplains for the Bay of Pigs Invasion force and carried letters calling on all Catholics to rise against the government. Led by Manuel Artime, a former leader of Agrupación Católica Universitaria in Cuba, the invaders proclaimed the Catholic nature of their expedition and placed a crucifix on the shoulder patches of all the uniforms of the invading forces.

The failure of the Bay of Pigs invaders provoked a new wave of emigration of clergy and faithful alike from Cuba. Through 1961, the government employed harsh measures against the church, expulsing all foreign clergy from the country and prohibiting the public expression of religion. A dispute over permission for a religious procession led by Mons. Boza Masdival in Havana in August 1961, during which participants shouted antirevolutionary slogans, erupting in a melee that resulted in the death of a passing teenager and led to the expulsion of 130 priests and religious to Spain in 1962. The Cuban Catholic Church had earned its reputation as a vocal, confrontational, oppositional actor in the first three years of the revolutionary regime. With the nationalization of education and social services complete and the church stripped of virtually all its social influence and most of its institutional resources and human capital, the government settled on an official policy that Catholics could participate in the building of revolutionary society as citizens but could not exhibit or proclaim their Catholic identity.

The Cuban Revolution, rather than transforming the Cuban Church, reinforced traditional religious policies and behavior, making the church less open and innovative than most other Latin American churches. The Catholic Church’s position in Cuba, which had been one of privilege from the time of Spanish colonization through Cuba’s period as a republic and US protectorate, became one of highly subdued autonomy under the revolutionary government. After asserting itself confrontationally during the first three years of revolutionary rule, the church turned inward and ceased its confrontational activities, having lost a large portion of its base of believers to emigration and exile, as well as much of its clergy. A period characterized by ‘silence’, tension, and at times ambiguously accommodative relations ensued between church and state for the first time in Cuban history.

Clergy in Cuba that have remained on the island throughout the entire span of the revolutionary period remember the 1960s and 1970s as a dark age. Padre Teodoro Becerril of Havana recalls the cloud of oppression that fell over the Cuban Church:

In the first years of the Revolution, there was much tension, discrimination, and incomprehension…The 60s and 70s were periods of tension, of a lack of liberty. The one social aspect of this time present in Cuba that was against the Revolution was Catholic social doctrine. For example, the church didn’t accept the elimination of private property, much less the total state monopoly over Cuban society (Becerril 2006).

But church leaders did not have the tools to promote their social doctrine, much less stop the processes of nationalization and socialization of education and social services. By 1962, 70 percent of Catholic priests and 90 percent of Catholic religious fled or were forced to leave, though by 1963 some had decided to return (Crahan 1999: 108). Mons. Alfredo Petit, currently Auxiliary Bishop of Havana, reflects on the social delegitization of Catholicism that accompanied the institutional decimation of the Catholic Church: “Our private schools were nationalized. Catholics were excluded from all public life, they couldn’t profess their faith openly” (Petit 2006). Mons. Petit was among a group of Catholic priests that were taken to military detention camps in the mid-1960s, along with individuals from other groups deemed socially undesirable and untrustworthy for incorporation into the revolutionary armed forces. These Military Units to Aid Production (UMAPs) were later admitted as errors by the Castro government and closed down in 1968 (Kirk 1989: 68). But the damage was done. The members of the church that were brought to the camps, a group that included the current Cardinal Jaime Ortega, would not forget the experience.

By 1968, all of Cuba’s bishops were born in Cuba. But its ranks were still depleted and internal conflicts between conservatives and reform-minded church leaders persisted, and its passive laity did not feel comfortable openly professing their faith, either socially or in civil activities. Heading into the 1980s, the general aura of the Catholic Church in Cuba was that of a marginalized, quiescent institution, a relic of a pre-Revolutionary society, causing Crahan (1979) to write, “Only if substantial numbers of Cubans feel a strong need for an otherworldly explanation of life is there a likelihood that the churches will recuperate” (181). The one function that remained constant was that the church was still a destination for those disaffected with the Revolution. The 1986 Encuentro Nacional Eclesial Cubano (ENEC) was a watershed conference for the Cuban Catholic Church, meant to be the start of a new direction for the church in Cuban society. Church leaders admitted their own errors and shortcomings of the past and expressed their determination to update their approach to evangelization and for the church to become an active socio-religious force in Cuban society. The church affirmed that its leaders in Cuba were staying, and they implored their faithful to stay as well. This also signaled the extent to which Cuban church leaders distanced themselves from the church in exile, a church they believed was far removed from Cuba’s social reality, and proclaimed their independence and autonomy as Cuba’s national church. The church came into its own not only by drawing contrasts with the revolutionary regime but with the extreme confrontational views of the United States and the Cuban community in exile. According to Padre Fernando De la Vega of Havana, the priority of the ENEC conference was not only to recognize that the Revolution had produced a new fundamental social reality, but to convince Cuban Catholics that it was worth the trouble to stay in Cuba. Just as the church was using the occasion to fix itself, Cuban Catholics should try to fix Cuba from within : “In 1986, the principal objective was to formulate a plan that addressed the national reality…In the past, many were thinking about the Spanish civil war and chose to flee. The state for its part was very hostile. The goal of ENEC was to say, ‘Don’t leave. Let’s see what we have to offer here’” (De la Vega 2006). Cuban Catholics, the church seemed to learn, constituted a unique community that needed their active support. The Cuban Church would become a missionary church and begin planting roots amongst the destitute of Cuban society as they had never done before.

Church Strategy: Indirect Confrontation

In 1991, the situation changed dramatically. The collapse of the Soviet Union sparked a profound change of thinking within the Cuban Catholic Church, especially in its strategy for dealing with the revolutionary government. It now looked as though the Castro regime, like the many satellite communist states of Eastern Europe, was destined for a similar demise. The loss of Soviet subsidies led to an economic crisis unprecedented in Cuban history. Often characterized as a church caught by surprise, the Cuban Catholic Church was not prepared for the sweeping social changes of the Cuban Revolution, but it now sought to prepare itself to assume a larger role in a post-revolutionary Cuba. Two years later, the COCC issued a harsh critique of the Cuban Revolution - harsh in the context of Cuba’s national political discourse, that is. Rather than return to the scathing condemnations of the early 1960s, the bishops framed the contentious message of the pastoral letter El amor todo lo espera with words like dialogue, reconciliation, and respect, but it was received by the Cuban government as a contemptible, blatant attack on the Revolution. The weakened position of the government resulting from the economic crisis made its counter-attack on the Cuban Church less virulent than it could have been. The Cuban Catholic Church was denounced in the government-controlled media as a foreign and counter-revolutionary institution with a history of conspiring with foreign enemies. However, no churches were intruded upon, nor did any arrests or overt harassment of church officials occur. Despite the increased tension in church-state relations, the Cuban Church was reaping real benefits. Church attendance was on the rise. In 1994, the Vatican named Archbishop of Havana Jaime Ortega y Salino only the second Cardinal in the history of the Cuban Catholic Church. Shortly thereafter, Pope John Paul II agreed to accept an invitation to visit Cuba that had been extended by the Castro regime a decade earlier. It was becoming apparent to many Cubans that there was an independent institution on the island that would welcome those who were ‘unsympathetic’ to the Revolution. The stage was set for a new period of church-state relations: a relationship characterized by a new church strategy of indirect confrontation.

Indirect confrontation is the defining aspect of the Cuban Church’s contentious strategy. I define strategies of direct and indirect confrontation as follows: Direct confrontation is a politically contentious strategy in which the church makes explicit its view of the illegitimacy and/or malevolence of the ruling regime. In public statements the church identifies specific targets as illegitimate and/or malevolent, including specific officials, policies, institutions, organizations, or the official ideology. The church has no relationship or strained relations with the ruling regime but has public relationships with oppositional actors. Indirect confrontation is a politically contentious strategy in which the church does not make explicit its view of the illegitimacy or malevolence of the ruling regime. In public statements the church does not identify specific targets as illegitimate or malevolent, but remains confrontational in the context of the national discourse by identifying certain negative political, economic, or social effects resulting from the regime’s governance, policies, and/or ideology, and/or proposing alternative modes of governance, policies, and/or ideological or cultural meaning-systems. The church maintains formal relations with the regime but only symbolic and/or ambiguous relations with oppositional actors.

A strategy of indirect confrontation also finds the church in symbolic association with the primary social opposition – church leaders themselves do not participate in or endorse the activities of dissident actors, but it is generally known that the church supports the work of the primary social opposition. These dissidents tie their politics to Catholic symbols and generally seek the protection of the church and religious spaces to organize their activities. This contrasts with a strategy of direct confrontation, which would find the church in open association with oppositional leaders and groups, appearing with them in protests or rallies and defending their political ideas and actions. Cuban church leaders have sought to maintain a strategy of indirect confrontation in the context of a repressive socialist regime that has marginalized a Church unsympathetic to their social and political goals while dealing with a burgeoning dissident movement replete with Catholic lay activists.

Padre Fernando de la Vega sums up the process that led to the writing of El amor todo lo espera and its reception by the Cuban government in this way:

It was a great pastoral letter, but the government didn’t understand it. It was written in a tone of confrontation…The position of the church was no longer so defensive. Many of the fears were eliminated, due to the fall of the socialist camp. All that had happened before – the persecution – had ended. Many things stated in the letter began to be addressed in a round-about way through the media. It was a way of addressing real problems (De la Vega 2006).

Here, Padre De la Vega refers to the limited targets the bishops chose to confront: the one-party system headed by Fidel Castro was not outrightly denounced, but the bishops did choose to critique certain social, political, and economic ills. Even more direct is Mons. Petit, Auxiliary Bishop of Havana, responding to the charge that government officials felt the letter was too tough a critique: “El amor todo lo espera was just, not tough…it speaks of the reality here, and it continues to represent the truth…I was one of the writers…We said what we said because nobody had ever said anything like that before” (Petit 2006).

Reflecting the dire economic situation spurred by the collapse of the Soviet Union, the bishops essentially blamed the crisis on poor economic and political governance by the revolutionary regime. They make a litany of suggestions for political reform, opening doors for opposition groups to seek support in the church. El amor todo lo espera in many ways could be viewed as a political manifesto, signaling to existing and prospective dissident activists where the Cuban Church’s political sympathies lied.

El amor todo lo espera also contains the few examples of directly confrontational statements the bishops have made since forming their confrontational strategy. The tone taken by the bishops in this letter was unique and did not become constitutive of their political strategy; rather the bishops used the letter to signal their contentious stance to the rest of society and have since remained exclusively indirectly confrontational (the exceptions including a few iconic moments during the 1998 papal visit). The two strategies are brought together in this letter, containing some instances of the bishops explicitly naming the parties or institutions they deem responsible for Cuba’s social and economic crises. Under the heading, “Political Aspects”, the bishops identify five political “irritants” that must be eradicated along with the necessary economic changes, the accomplishment of which would produce a “bridge of hope in the national soul”: (1) the bishops begin by attacking the “omnipresent and exclusionary” character of the national ideology. They go on to argue that the constricting nature of the state ideology produces a sensation of exhaustion with all the repeated orations and slogans. And the issue of identity – what it means to be Cuban – has been closed by the regime to include only those Cubans who are also revolutionaries; (2) the bishops denounce the limitations imposed not on the exercise of certain freedoms, but on freedom itself. This statement is indicative of an indirectly confrontational strategy; however, the bishops argue that any substantive change in this attitude must be accompanied with the administration of an independent justice system – which would result in the consolidation of a state governed by the rule of law; (3) the bishops call attention to the excessive control of the Organs of State Security, that at times intrudes on the strictly private lives of citizens and produces a social fear that is hard to define but palpable to feel; (4) the bishops underscore the high number of prisoners in Cuba, condemned for actions which could reasonably be depenalized or in some cases at least reconsidered. The bishops reason that under a conciliatory political climate men could be freed who have been imprisoned for crimes motivated by politics or economics; (5) the bishops argue that the effective elimination of all discrimination for philosophical ideas, political ideas, or religious creed, would open the way for participation of all Cubans in the life of the country (COCC 1993).

Since the writing of El amor todo lo espera, the Cuban Church has not directly confronted the ruling regime in its actions or rhetoric. It has instead chosen to focus on the challenges and difficulties of fulfilling their religious mission, thus highlighting in an indirect way the repressive social environment in Cuba. In a 2002 conference on the subject of the Catholic Church and the media in Cuba that took place in the San Juan de Letrán Convent in Havana, Orlando Márquez, a Catholic layman and editor of Palabra Nueva (the official newsletter of the Archdiocese of Havana) referred to the singularity of El amor todo lo espera as a political statement stating, “In the document…the Church said what it could say…Everything is clear, everything is said, and the Church is using its actual means of communication to try to proceed according to the mission of the Church” (Márquez, “Debate” 2002). The Cuban Church publicly treats the pastoral letter as a unique event rather than a representative statement of their ongoing strategy. However, many church leaders privately express great pride for composing the letter and have deemed it unnecessary to write another similar pastoral letter because Cuba’s social, political, and economic conditions have not profoundly changed. The singularity of El amor todo lo espera has given it iconic status in the history of the Cuban Church and has allowed church leaders to proceed with an indirectly confrontational strategy without resorting to making direct political denunciations. What church leaders continue to call into question is the lack of political pluralism in Cuba, though without characterizing the regime as totalitarian and in only scattered instances criticizing the domination of the PCC.

To signal their disapproval of the regime without overstepping into direct confrontation, church leaders have issued calls for increased political pluralism and the open debate of political ideas. They do not explicitly condemn the regime or call for a democratic transition. To avoid giving the regime the tools to portray the Catholic Church as a conspiratorial political organization, church leaders affirm Catholic doctrine that the church does not and will not instruct its faithful to join any specific political organization or choose a specific political option. Yet, church leaders always follow these caveats by stating that their faithful are free to choose any and all political options – as long as their decisions are made in recognition of God’s love and based on religious morality. This freedom to choose amongst a plurality of political options is something not offered by the Cuban regime, which has legalized only one political party and in a strict sense only one political option – that for socialism and the Cuban Revolution – though they may believe the Revolution altruistic and skillful enough to serve the needs of all of Cuba’s people. For the regime, the Revolution is the embodiment of identity and nation, not just a set of political institutions. Any options contrary to the Revolution are contrary to Cuba, to the nation itself. Part of the Cuban Church’s strategy of indirect confrontation is to make the simple observation that there should exist a variety of political options.

A 2003 theological-pastoral instructoral of the COCC, entitled “The Social Presence of the Church”, explicitly addressed the Cuban Church’s perspective on political involvement:

The mission of the Church is not political; its mission is not to intervene directly in the exercise of civil power, nor in the oppositional structures of power, nor support one or another party, nor recommend a candidate party up for vote in an election. In the political debate amongst parties that confront one another or join in ideological or strategic alliances the Church must be neutral, although it is a part of its ethic that the rights of everyone be respected in this debate (COCC 2003).

Recognition of the idea that such a debate should occur, even without identifying the specifics of what political issues or ideas should be included in Cuba’s public discourse, is in itself perceived by the regime as an act of confrontation. Church leaders do not endorse particular parties but they decry the fact that political options are not offered by the Cuban political system. Catholic laypeople need only be loyal to the Catholic Church, and must necessarily base their political choices on Christian ethics. The church, then, would be against any system that did not provide for political choices among which Christians could choose.

This is the indirect way in which democratization is advocated – avoiding mention of specific leaders, parties, institutions, and political options that should be ousted, formed, erected, or exercised (respectively), but acknowledging that a plurality of potential leaders, parties, institutions, options do exist and should be respected. While the Cuban Church does not denounce the revolutionary system per se, it does affirm the existence of a plurality of political options that would benefit Cuba should some social force work toward the realization of those options. In “The Social Presence of the Church”, the bishops make known their criticism of the official ideology and hint at a political solution to the “difficult situation” created by totalitarian ideology:

When one identifies the ideology of the government with all the juridical order and the ethical reality of the country, he is equating society with the State and in this way the State converts itself equally in the conscience of all the citizens…It is imperative to keep in mind that, actually, all thought and action does not coincide with the official ideology…” (COCC 2003).

The virtues of Marxism are not attacked; rather, the State ideology is criticized only to the extent that it does not represent all the realities to be found in Cuba nor in the conscience of every citizen. In this passage, the bishops hope to position the Catholic Church as the one institution that recognizes the plurality of Cuban culture, even as they follow their mission to evangelize the population and advocate a single morality, based on Christian ethics.

Formally and publicly, the Cuban Catholic Church strives to maintain a cordial relationship with the Castro regime. Describing the nature of church-state relations, Mons. Jose Felix Pérez Riera, former Adjunct Secretary of the COCC, uses very dry, stark terms, never flowering over the coldness that exists between the two entities: “Relations are formal, in order, and they are functioning. They cover administrative aspects, that may have to do with the restoration of churches or priests that want to do a religious procession. Between the government and the COCC, we cover basic principles: there is a dialogue about human and social issues. But our focus is different – we’re always thinking about the loss of values” (Pérez Riera 2006). Here, Mons. Pérez Riera seeks to acknowledge certain issues around which the church and the regime have found common ground, yet, he distinguishes the church’s emphasis on the loss of values in Cuban society. Even the most genial descriptions of church-state relations made by church leaders emphasize the differences in thinking between the two entities. The Office of Religious Subjects of the PCC is the official channel through which all communications between church and state take place. The existence of such an office is a source of consternation for the Catholic Church. Mons. Pérez Riera notes that when the Office of Religious Subjects contacts the church, it is usually to protest church actions that overstep boundaries instituted by the government: “It doesn’t occur with much frequency. It could be that a priest in a town organized a procession without permission, as they say, disturbing the social order; it could be about certain articles published in church magazines, or that someone visited without official documentation” (Pérez Riera 2006). In discussing the process of dealing with the Office of Religious Subjects, Mons. Ramon Suárez Polcari (the Chancellor of the Cuban Catholic Church in Havana) expressed dismay at the Catholic Church’s loss of status: “All of us communicate with the State through the official office; there are signs of improvement but there is always tension; they have their own style of working; the Catholic Church maintains a unique posture; there is a historical tradition…the church never had to incorporate itself into any special Council, like the Concilio Evangélico today; after the Revolution, we ceased being the official church” (Suárez Polcari 2006). The Concilio Evangélico is a Christian church council that encompasses all the Protestant denominations in Cuba. All the churches that belong to the Concilio cooperate with and are supportive of the Revolution. The Catholic Church remains the only Christian church that has not been incorporated into the Concilio Evangélico. Mons. Polcari detailed how being part of the Concilio has resulted in benefits for the Protestant churches, even with fewer percentages of faithful in Cuba than the Catholic Church: “Amongst Protestants and Evangelicals there is no considerable percentage of faithful in Cuba; they haven’t even grown much, but they have more facilities, they have permission to construct new temples; so they have their own posture – the Catholic Church has more independence than the Concilio Evangélico, which is identified with the State” (Suárez Polcari 2006).

The important thing for church officials is to stress that they function independent of the government, something that would be compromised by joining a council that, in the eyes of the Cuban Catholic Church, forces other churches to tow the government line.

Maintaining dialogue is the official policy of the Cuban Catholic Church, but church leaders recognize that the Castro regime has erected barriers that inhibit maintaining effective dialogue, that is, dialogue that would produce compromises between the church and government on areas of mutual interest and lead to collaboration on social issues and projects between the two institutions. Rolando Suárez, a Catholic layman and the lawyer of the COCC, points to certain social issues that have been on the table in discussions between church and government officials: “The government made abortion legal, and employs the death penalty. On these issues we are not in agreement. But, for example, the government has said that euthanasia will be illegal. On this issue we have agreement” (Suárez 2006). However, the regime does not in practice consult the church on how to approach social issues. Areas of agreement are arrived at more or less by chance rather than consultation. Rather, the Office of Religious Subjects dictates to and admonishes the church for its offenses.

Cuban church leaders have made apparent their desire to find solutions to issues of common interest, but it criticizes the official channels set up by the regime to purportedly achieve a constructive dialogue. The COCC conveys its awareness that the regime has tried to marginalize the Catholic Church; but the highly critical tone of their discourse keeps its reference point in the church’s efforts to work with the regime, not against it. The Church’s indirectly confrontational posture allows it to maintain formalized relations with the regime, though they remain contentious. Political themes remain a taboo subject and are not broached in official meetings between the PCC and the COCC. This is perhaps the primary reason why a formal relationship can be maintained between the two institutions.

The Church and the Opposition

A 2002 article in Palabra Nueva clearly outlined the Church’s relationship to Cuba’s dissident community, as much by what was said in the article by what wasn’t said. Entitled El Proyecto de la Iglesia (“The Project of the Church”), Palabra Nueva’s editor Orlando Márquez responded to a letter from Iván Chávez Viera (presumably a Catholic dissident) criticizing the Catholic Church for not endorsing Oswaldo Payá’s Varela Project, a petition presented to the Cuban National Assembly proposing laws that would entail comprehensive political reforms, including the establishment of freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, free elections, freedom to start private businesses, and amnesty for political prisoners. Oswaldo Payá’s dissident organization, the Christian Liberation Movement (CLM), organized the Varela Project. CLM activists collected 11,020 signatures of registered voters, more than the 10,000 required by the Cuban constitution for any petition proposing new laws to be reviewed by the Cuban National Assembly.

To establish the church’s credibility as a defender of oppositional actors, Márquez invokes passages from El amor todo lo espera as a record of what the institutional church, through the voice of the COCC, thinks about those Cubans that are called “dissidents,” “opponents,” and “counter-revolutionaries.” The passages convey the bishops’ opinion that “dissension” can be “enlightening,” and argue that if Cuba can open international relationships with nations who do not agree with the Cuban system, why at the national level should Cuban citizens be forcibly uniform in their political orientation? Márquez continued: “The prophetic mission of the church is to affirm and denounce from its own position, centered in the human person, without attaching itself to any political posture, but in recognition of the political vocation of citizens” (Márquez, “El Proyecto” 2002). Here, Márquez claims the church’s neutrality in questions of political disputes: the church does not and will not endorse or adhere to any partisan political programmes. Yet, the Varela Project was not in and of itself a partisan political manifesto but a petition proposing liberal democratic political reforms including freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, free elections, and amnesty for political prisoners. These are the very freedoms that church officials have intimated at in its political testimonials and professed to support in private interviews. The Varela Project did not forward the agenda of a partisan political organization, but requested the kind of political opening that church leaders hope will lead to the development of political pluralism and civil society. Nevertheless, Oswaldo Payá, a Catholic layman, was forced (according to church policy) to abandon any pastoral duties done for the church when he established a political organization, to relieve the church of direct association with the Varela Project or the CLM.

Later in the article it becomes apparent that Márquez believes the church should avoid endorsing the Varela Project out of concern for the institutional autonomy of the church vis-à-vis government reprisals rather than the interests of partisan neutrality. Church leaders have become so adept at navigating the political waters of Cuban society that it will not capitulate to the demands of any of Cuba’s dissident actors, even though it may support the stated goals of such actors. The goal of Cuba’s strategy of indirect confrontation has been to symbolically align itself with the social opposition while maintaining its independence – thus, retaining its status as the only private, independent, yet politically contentious institution on the island. This, according to Márquez, means refusing to respond to the pressures of those very social actors the Church has worked to cultivate – at times, in fact, publicly distancing itself from these social actors when they become excessively belligerent. Making clear that he speaks for the hierarchy in the pages of Palabra Nueva, Márquez goes on to outline the project of the Church: “Should the church define itself – and this magazine is an instrument of the church – according to the criteria of political actors, or should it strive to maintain its independence in such subjects, engaging itself even more in a pastoral of reconciliation and preserving its obligation with the people to fulfill the mission received from Jesus Christ? That is the project of the church” (Márquez, “El Proyecto” 2002). Knowing that the Cuban Church, as a result of its indirectly confrontational strategy, often is charged with not going far enough into the arena of contentious politics by more extreme and partisan political dissidents (in Cuba and in exile) Márquez further explains how the Church addresses political issues: “If they existed, it is possible that we would occupy more of these subjects, but not from a partisan position. In other words, prudence is not synonymous with silence and complicity” (Márquez, “El Proyecto” 2002). Church officials do not often address politically contentious issues in public, not because it is complicit with the government but because it is prudent in its behavior.

Prudence dominates the Catholic Church’s agenda in Cuba. Yet, church officials still are pressured by extreme political opponents in exile and moderate dissident activists on the island to assume a more directly politically confrontational approach. Padre Fernando de la Vega states what has become an oft repeated phrase by church officials to those who would look to the Church to use its institutional autonomy to organize dissident groups against the Castro regime, that the Church will not serve as an alternative political party: “The church cannot be an alternative political party in Cuba. The church is positioned between two camps – those that live here and don’t accept the official ideology and the church in exile, which says that we don’t come out strongly enough against the state. But they are there and we are here” (De la Vega 2006). This sentiment was echoed in my talks with Mons. Pérez Riera: “The church cannot assume any political projects; it cannot be an alternative opposition political party. It must maintain its independence before those that want to manipulate it with the official ideology. The church has its own project of evangelization. Our lay can be members of dissident groups or governmental groups” (Pérez Riera 2006). But the Cuban Church has never worked to build any political organizations itself, and though it encourages Catholics to be politically active, it does not endorse the organizations that may be built by its faithful. The association of the church with opposition groups remains symbolic, even though these groups may be predominantly populated with individuals bred from within the church’s temples.

The Cuban Catholic Church has since the early 1990s consistently vocalized its desire for the development of an autonomous civil society, independent of the many state-run organizations that promote citizen participation in the socialist system. Rolando Suárez, Catholic layman and lawyer of the COCC, puts the development of civil society at the forefront of the Church’s political interests: “The big issue on the table is civil society, and participation in civil society. Some Marxists argue that the Communist Party is part of civil society, but for this to be true there must be other civil actors present as well. This is an unresolved theme here. The church defends the values of civil society, not the specific organizations” (Suárez 2006). The unresolved theme is the ability of dissident political organizations to organize and petition the government legally. The aim of the church is to nurture and defend the development of civil society, not specific civil organizations. Suárez bases the church’s position on civil development on the church’s love for God rather than the achievement of a political ideal (presumably because the political ideals espoused here are God’s ideals for the fulfillment of human freedom) to maintain the basis of the church’s actions in sacred transcendence. This is the essential source of protection for the church – its strict adherence to its religious duties and functions while avoiding any public forays into political activities.

Resolving not to offer direct assistance or recognition to specific dissident organizations has put the official church at odds with some grassroots sectors of the church and Catholic oppositional actors that would like the official church to adopt a more directly confrontational strategy and be an active participant in dissident activities. Oswaldo Payá, who’s Christian Liberation Movement organized the Varela Project, has not received an endorsement from the official church. Events surrounding the development of the Varela Project signaled the distance that exists between the official church and Catholic lay activists that participate in dissident activities, illustrating the church’s adherence to an indirectly confrontational strategy. Church leaders seem willing to encourage the laity to engage in dissident activities, but will publicly distance themselves from Catholic dissidents who draw the attention of the government.

Dagoberto Valdés, Director of the Center of Civic and Religious Formation of Pinar del Río, President of the Catholic Commission for Culture of Pinar del Río, and a member of the Vatican’s Council on Peace and Justice, in the 1990s formed close relationships with Mons. José Siro González, Archbishop of Pinar del Río, and Mons. Meurice of Santiago de Cuba, making him a leading figure among Catholic laymen in Cuba. Though each diocese in Cuba has a Center of Formation in the Faith, Pinar del Río’s diocese was the only in Cuba to feature a Center of Civic and Religious Formation. Valdés used the Center to organize lectures on democracy, human rights, and civic responsibility. He also served as the director of Vitral, considered the most politically contentious of the Catholic publications. Vitral often made a habit of publishing direct denunciations of the Cuban government and many of its policies.

In early 2007, the church resigned to cut its ties with the increasingly contentious and directly confrontational tone of Vitral. Valdés’ close associate and ally, Mons. González, retired in early 2007 and was replaced by Mons. Jorge Enrique Serpa as Archbishop of Pinar del Río. Among the first decisions made by the new bishop was that resources reserved for the publication of Vitral and running the Center of Civic and Religious Formation would be redirected. The publication of Vitral would no longer be guaranteed.

In an editorial announcing the new bishop’s decision Valdés cited a lack of funds as the reason for the closing of Vitral. For a church that consistently bemoans its lack of access to media outlets, closing one of its own publications, the most critical of the Cuban government, was interpreted internationally as a concession to the Cuban government. In one of his only interviews following the closing of Vitral, Dagoberto Valdés lamented the fact that the church itself had shut the magazine down, rather than repressive government tactics: “What I could not believe was that the decision to close the magazine came from within the church” (qtd. in Ravsberg 2007). Responding to the high level of international publicity the story of Vitral’s closing received, Mons. Serpa stated in an official communique from the diocese of Pinar del Río that he never discussed closing or terminating Vitral or the Center of Civic and Religious Formation, only that it was decided that the resources of the diocese must be redistributed in corresponding diocesan commissions, to better serve the program of evangelization, noted by Mons. Serpa as the “most important program of action the church can have” (Serpa 2007). He continued: “I have asked that Vitral magazine keep to the truth based on the gospel and the church's social doctrine, without falling into aggressive and argumentative expressions”(Serpa 2007). Church activists in Pinar del Río and Havana said church leaders had been discussing the closing of Vitral for more than a year because of government pressure. A news article revealed that the sharpness of Vitral political critiques had come to worry both conservatives in the church and hard-liners in government, according to an anonymous dissident activist (Cancio 2007).

This self-policing by the Cuban hierarchy reflects their intent to distance themselves from acts of direct confrontation and the superiority of their corporate interests. Dissident actors were shocked to learn that the same church that produced El amor todo lo espera was willing to engage in self-censure, thus adhering to its indirectly confrontational strategy. The Center of Civic and Religious Formation has been dismantled. The church hierarchy had successfully removed its official stamp from the pages of Vitral. A month later, a new edition of Vitral (with Dagoberto Valdés and his group of editors no longer involved) was published that assumed the indirectly confrontational and more conciliatory tone of the Cuban Church’s official line.

Cuban dissidents have not chosen to stage many formal protest marches/events or make public protest a part of their contentious repertoire. Only the Ladies in White (Las Damas en Blanca), the wives of imprisoned dissidents who gather every Sunday at the Santa Rita Church and stage a walk through Havana, have made public protest their primary contentious action. Yet even this group, who walks peacefully and virtually unencumbered through the streets of Havana, does not receive any public acknowledgement or participation from church officials. The Ladies in White are permitted to use the Santa Rita Church as their gathering place, but they do not receive any public recognition by leaders of the church itself. Their processions go largely unmolested by government forces, due in large part to the high level of international attention they have garnered as well as the fact that no political statements or directly confrontational actions accompany the processions.

Mons. Alfredo Petit has witnessed a large number of believers flocking to the Catholic Church in search of political as much as religious leaders, and consequently a large number of disillusioned people: “Politics is the responsibility of laymen, they carry the social doctrine that we have. A lot of people come to the church thinking they’re going to find an alternative political party, and the church is not one” (Petit 2006). The Cuban Church has delegated the responsibility of political confrontation to laymen. According to the church’s strategy, laymen should be actively participating in politics, though church officials themselves cannot enter the political sphere. The political nature of El amor todo lo espera gave many Cubans the sense that the Catholic Church would lead a movement of dissident activists, but it has refused to assume this role. Though Cuban church leaders acknowledge that the Catholic Church now attracts almost exclusively Cubans who are unsympathetic to the Revolution, its ideology, and its political, economic, and social goals, they do not use their pulpits to make directly confrontational political pronouncements. As adamant as church leaders are about refusing to become political figures, they forcefully argue that the Catholic laity must themselves become politically active. According to Rolando Suárez, “The Church doesn’t involve itself in politics. This is the duty of our faithful. However, many Catholic faithful often don’t realize that this is a social duty” (Suárez 2006). It becomes apparent that church leaders feel they are endowed with a great responsibility to help develop a politically conscious citizenry, a responsibility that was neglected prior to the 1986 ENEC conference. Though they will not themselves assume a directly confrontational public voice, they are fomenting an able portion of the citizenry to think of themselves first and foremost as dignified Christian individuals, rather than simple parts of a large collective group. The Cuban Church does not want to be the voice of the opposition – but it does want to form and inform those who would become that voice.

The Government Perspective

Mention of El amor todo lo espera to Dorita Pérez, Director of the Office of Religious Affairs of the PCC, Provincia La Habana, stirs a wrath of disdain toward the Cuban Catholic Church. Speaking for the Cuban government, her office handles all communications between the Catholic Church and the PCC in Havana Province. Fiercely disagreeing with Mons. Petit, Sra. Pérez points to El amor todo lo espera as an example of the Cuban Church overstepping its bounds into the realm of political and economic issues in Cuba: “El amor todo lo espera made a very harsh critique. It criticized the treatment of youths, it criticized our educational system. They do politics in a devious, underhanded way. They are capitalists. They want education and healthcare to charge for these services. Cuba is not in want for any of this” (Pérez 2006).

These kinds of accusations represent the government’s view that the church is not only seeking to assist dissident activists in Cuba but also wants to reoccupy a social space that represents the most touted achievements of the Revolution, the fields of education and healthcare – two fields traditionally administered to by church institutions in Cuban society, but that now are under a state monopoly. In my interview, Sra. Pérez, as a representative of the Cuban government, did not waiver in her view of the Cuban Church as a domestic antagonist, a non-revolutionary institution if not a counter-revolutionary one: “From the beginning of the Revolution the Catholics were against the revolutionary authority. Counterrevolutionaries hid within the church. They were against the Revolution and wanted to continue with their oligarchy.” This suspicion of religion and the Catholic Church specifically continued throughout the revolutionary era. Following the ENEC conference, when Cuban church leaders emerged with a new theology that appeared to recognize the legitimacy of the Revolution and some of its achievements, rapprochement seemed possible. But issuing El amor todo lo espera at the low point of the “special period” confirmed government suspicions that the Church remained a counter-revolutionary organization: “This same church claims it doesn’t have anything to do with politics, and always it takes positions directly contradicting what we say. The Cuban Revolution is what teaches values. Now their pastoral letters speak against everything the Revolution says, and later they say that they don’t talk about politics” (Pérez 2006). The political character of much of the Church’s writings and some of its activities does not go unnoticed by the government.

Sra. Pérez’s characterization of church-state relations centers on delineating boundaries. It would seem that relations could improve if the church would limit itself to matters of spirituality and nothing more:

Relations between the Catholic church and the government are stable, more or less. They are relations of coexistence. The church has a specific objective of getting control of education and healthcare. These interests haven’t changed. They want them as they used to have them here, and like they have them in other countries, but here that is the work of the government, not the church (Pérez 2006).

Education and healthcare are two areas of heightened contention, as these fields constituted the most touted achievements of the Revolution yet have historically been included in the domain of the Catholic Church: “After the ‘special period’ began they hoped to give they people a ‘little snack’ and health services. But that is the responsibility of the government, not the church” (Pérez 2006). To highlight the hypocrisy of the church, she discussed the example of Cuban provincial schools, located primarily in the country. Church leaders have spoken against these schools, saying they break up the family structure, because children normally must attend school in the country for a period of approximately two weeks, visit home for a weekend, and then return to the countryside again. But, she argued, don’t the monasteries and seminaries do the same thing? In the end, according to Sra. Pérez, the schools only give a percentage of a child education and the rest must come from the family.

Describing communications between the church and her office, Sra. Pérez states, “Communications are fluid, there is no other word to describe them. But they don’t want to extend them. The objective of the church should be to serve and perform humanitarian services. But relations are normal. El Comandante had a meeting last year with the COCC and it went well, it was cordial. They say in front of him that they don’t want to alter socialism, but when they leave to do something else” (Pérez 2006). In the Cuban government’s perspective, the church’s strategy of indirect confrontation consists of concealing its true objectives and desires, to return to the elite status the church enjoyed under the Republic, participate in a democratic transition, and reoccupy and administer Catholic services in education and healthcare. The philosophy of the Revolution is that the state has the capacity to deliver all goods and services to the populace, so that efforts of the church to administer social services, even charitable ones, are considered a threat: “We don’t have anything but what the Revolution provides. Foreign priests often come to Havana and ask the people of the barrio what they need. But there is no lack of necessities here. The state performs this function, giving people what they need. They cannot teach us this, no priest can” (Pérez 2006).

A strategy of indirect confrontation is at its foundation confrontational. The Cuban Catholic Church and the Castro regime are institutions on opposite sides of broad political and philosophical questions in a decidedly adversarial relationship. Indirectly confronting the regime relieves the church from the threat of direct persecution, but the government has its own way of indirectly marginalizing the Cuban Church, to assure it does not become an autonomous and mainstream political institution. Part of this strategy came in creating the Concilio Evangélico, which gives special privileges for Protestant religions, including permission to construct new churches. Sra. Pérez concedes, “Relations are normal with everybody, but with the Protestant churches they are better” (Pérez 2006). According to Orlando Márquez, the existence of the Concilio has severed channels of communication between the Catholic Church and the more revolution-sympathetic Protestant faiths: “Really, there aren’t any relations between Catholicism other faiths. There are many Christian churches here but the communist system is paralyzing in terms of the relationships we are able to forget” (Márquez 2006). The Concilio then serves to strengthen the capacity of Protestant churches to proselytize while isolating the Catholic Church.

There is stark disagreement over the nature of the Church’s relationship to dissident activists as well. In response to the question of whether the dissidents have an alliance with the church to confront the government, Rolando Suárez states:

No – the church has always been of the opinion that our faithful is free to participate in politics. After declaring yourself faithful, all our faithful are free to choose any political path, it’s the freedom that the church proposes, not that they must choose certain parties. The church, the hierarchy, has always been at the service of everyone. There are Catholics that are communist, that are liberal, the church is open to everything. There is no coalition between the church and a political party. I am a layperson, and the hierarchy has never told me what the best political option is. But the church is against the lack of options in our political system (Suárez 2006).

This caveat allows the Cuban Church to position itself against the socialist system without denouncing it. However, it has not convinced the regime that there is not more than a symbolic relationship between the Cuban Church and Cuba’s dissidents. According to Sra. Pérez, “The few counterrevolutionaries we have here, miserable as they are, hold their meetings in the Catholic church because they give them the space. The pulpit should not be used for counterrevolutionary activities. They must recognize, for example, that if you believe in Christ, I believe in Castro. They must respect that” (Pérez 2006).

Does, then, the government envision any role for the Catholic Church in Cuban society? According to Sra. Pérez, only one that would come with validation of and submission to the social and political goals of the Revolution:

Society wants the church to join with the social revolutionary project. But they always ask for Catholic private education. They have Catholic schools for infants within the churches. We respect that because the churches are theirs. Here Catholics are not persecuted. But they have to respect our constitution and our laws. The Catholics confuse this – they talk foolishly. What they do in the church is conspiracy against the state. They should be very careful (Pérez 2006).

In effect, outlining preferences for increased political pluralism, and any suggestions that dissident work may improve the political situation of the country are considered disrespecting the laws of the country, and “talking foolishly.” It is no small feat that the Cuban Catholic Church remains the one private institution functioning on the island that has not been subsumed by the state. The price for this distinction has been periods of repression and unending suspicion. Charges of conspiracy have come even as the church pursues an indirectly confrontational strategy, which makes the Cuban Church’s resistance to endorse dissident organizations or movements like the Varela Project much more logical. Maintaining this strategy requires coordination and precision, as it is apparent that no article or procession goes unnoticed by the Office of Religious Subjects. While disdaining the church, Sra. Pérez refuses to label it as a potential threat. But for all the talk of normalized relations, it is evident that the government recognizes with contempt the efforts of the church to nurture a new way of thinking in its flock. No less than the Cardinal himself has been signaled out as a target of the government’s scorn:

It doesn’t interest us when people profess religion. What interests us is that they respect the laws of the country, of the patria. Now certain processions are permitted, for example during Semana Santa. We’re not scared of that, but they must respect the public order. They organize their public activities and we don’t have absolutely any fear. But there are people that manipulate these activities. And Jaime (Cardinal Ortega) is the one who is scared. He never goes out in procession (Pérez 2006).

The challenge to Cardinal Ortega here is very revealing, almost as a recognition of the extent to which the government would come down on the church if it were to organize processions without permission. Sra. Pérez displays a confidence in the oppressive apparatus of the regime to illustrate her point that the Cuban government would not fear even a directly confrontational challenge from the Cuban Church.

Conclusion

The Cuban Catholic Church is firmly situated on the side of opposition to the Castro regime. Its relationship with the government is one of mutual dislike. The church has adopted strategies to conceal its desires for a regime transition and to mask what would be considered by the regime counter-revolutionary activities. It has chosen to indirectly confront the regime, deliberately avoiding overtly confronting the regime so as not to risk overt persecution. The government has responded with its own efforts to marginalize the Catholic Church in Cuba, creating a situation of heightened tensions between the two institutions. While not endorsing the political organizations that employ Catholic symbolism, the Cuban Church has not actively discredited them either. To a large extent, it was sufficient that Cuban church leaders have stayed neutral in reference to many political issues, critical events, and dissident groups to remain in the realm of contentious politics; in a socio-political milieu where revolutionary support is demanded by the structures of authority, silence can be vociferously declarative and neutrality itself an act of confrontation.

The Cuban Catholic Church is the one national institution that has survived the duration of the Revolution with its autonomy intact while contributing to the development of a democratic political culture on the island. Their positions as oppositional actors that have remained in Cuba have afforded Cuban church leaders a sophistication in dealing with the system – they have become adept at validating the Cuban reality while promoting both their theological vision and democratic principles. The Cuban Church does not subscribe to a particular agenda for political reform, does not endorse any dissident movements within Cuba, Catholic or otherwise, and has not advocated any overthrow of the current regime, peaceful or otherwise. Rather, it is working within the system, following its primary mission of evangelization, and educating its parishioners to think of themselves as autonomous individuals who are responsible for their own choices. This is the Cuban Church at its most subversive – bringing the focus to the dignity of the individual and his choices, a scandalous philosophy in a system that prizes the collective will and demands unity in support of the revolutionary project.

Cuban church leaders seem eager to resume the former position held by the Cuban Catholic Church as the “official” church of Cuba, though they are acutely aware that they cannot operate as an elitist institution (like they once did) in Cuba’s contemporary political culture. The ENEC conference began a renovation process within the church, one they feel 20-plus years later has positioned them to champion the renovation of Cuban society and to contribute to that process as its principal moral and spiritual voice. They have focused on their own faithful, as the structures of revolutionary society have not permitted them to establish a mainstream role in society nor any access to mass communication. The Cuban Catholic Church remains on the fringes of revolutionary Cuban society, but it is the dominant institution of those dissident sectors of society that oppose the regime. For now, the church does not have many avenues to spread its spiritual or political message beyond its parishes. But its members have been primed and are ready to actively engage Cuba’s political processes in the event of a regime transition. Their faithful are the Cuban citizens who will most likely become advocates for democratization and the spreading of a democratic political culture beyond Cuba’s Catholic parishes.

Bibliography

Becerril, Padre Teodoro. 2006. Iglesia de Nuestra Senora de Carmen, Havana. Interview with Author. Havana.

Cancio Isla, Wilfredo. 2007. “An Outspoken Magazine of Cuban Church Closing.” El Nuevo Herald.

Conferencia de Obispos Católicos de Cuba. 1993. El amor todo lo espera. Reprinted in 1995. La Voz de la Iglesia en Cuba: 100 Documentos Episcopales. D.F., México: Obra Nacional de la Buen Prensa, A.C.

Conferencia de Obispos Católicos de Cuba. 2003. “La Presencia Social de la Iglesia.” Instrucción Teológico-Pastoral.

Crahan, Margaret E. 1979. “Salvation through Christ or Marx: Religion in Revolutionary Cuba.” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs. Vol. 21, No. 1.

Crahan, Margaret. “Cuba”, in Sigmund, Paul E. 1999. Religious Freedom and Evangelization in Latin America: The Challenge of Religious Pluralism. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books.

De la Vega, Padre Fernando. 2006. Interview with Author. Párroco de Montserrat, Havana..

Kirk, John M. 1989. Between God and the Party: Religion and Politics in Revolutionary Cuba. Tampa: University of South Florida Press.

Márquez, Orlando. April 2002. “Debate: Diálogo Posterior, Sostenido entre El Conferencista y Los Presentes en el Aula ‘Fray Bartolomé de las Casas,’ Compilado por Fray Jesús Espeja O.P.” Palabra Nueva.

Márquez, Orlando. April 2002. “El Proyecto de la Iglesia.” Palabra Nueva.

Márquez, Orlando. 2006. Director of Palabra Nueva, Archdiocese of Havana. Interview with Author. Havana.

Perez Riera, Mons. Jose Felix. 2006. Secretario Adjunto of the COCC, Iglesia de Santa Rita. Interview with Author. Miramar.

Pérez, Dorita. 2006. Oficina de Asuntos Religiosos, Comité Provincial del Partido Comunista Cubana, Havana. Interview with Author. Havana.

Petit, Mons. Alfredo. 2006. Auxiliary Bishop, Havana. Interview with Author. Havana.

Ravsberg, Fernando. “Cuba: Cierra Revista Católica.” 13 April 2007. bbcmundo.com

Serpa, Mons. Jorge Enrique. Official Communiqué. Pinar del Río, 17 April 2007.

Suárez Polcari, Mons. Ramon. 2006. Canciller de la Iglesia, Archdiocese of Havana. Interview with Author. Havana.

Suarez, Rolando. 2006. Lawyer of the COCC. Interview with Author. Havana.