2039 Indirect Confrontation:The
Evolution of the Political
Strateg y of the Cuban
Catholic Church
Dr. Robert A. Portada III^1
Abstract: In 2010, leaders of the Cuban Catholic Church engaged in negotiations with
key figures in the revolutionary government to secure the release of dozens of political
prisoners. This new, more prominent role for church leaders in contentious political
issues is the result not only of the historical evolution of church-state relations during
the revolutionary era but of a deliberate set of decisions on the part of the church hier-
archy to formulate a strategy that I call indirect confrontation, to maintain an indepen-
dent voice for the church on political issues without engaging in direct or overtly
caustic confrontational rhetoric or organized activities. In essence, the success of the
Cuban Catholic Church's recent efforts to intervene on behalf of dissidents and politi-
cal prisoners has been part of an almost 25-year strategy to carve out for itself the role
of political mediator in Cuban society through indirect confrontation with the Cuban
government.
Introduction
In the spring and summer of 2010, after the Cuban government
seemed poised to reinstitute a series of repressive crackdowns on dis-
sident activists (most conspicuously targeting and arresting some par-
- Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Kutztown University, 11/15/
2010