206 Chapter 9
The issues that created the divisions between the church and the
new revolutionary 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 Soviet Union. The church hierarchy began linking these and any
proposed reforms too radical for its liking to what it described as a
systemic move toward Soviet-style communism. To the Cuban Catho-
lic Church and most worldwide Catholic institutions before the Sec-
ond 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.
Accordingly, the Cuban Catholic 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 delegit-
imize the church as foreign, elitist, and a supporter of counterrevolu-
tionaries. Consequently, the new regime's nationalization of industry
and social services included Catholic schools and hospitals.
In August 1960, the Conference of Cuban Catholic Bishops
(COCC) collectively issued a pastoral letter that condemned both
communism and the relationship between Cuba and the USSR, and
called on the Cuban government to repudiate both its new ideology
and its new benefactor. The letter stated outright, “We condemn com-
munism,” and excoriated the dictatorial regime for turning the Cuban
population into veritable slaves.^2 By this time the United States had
already recalled its ambassadors and imposed economic sanctions on
Cuba. In April 1961, the failure of 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 exiled invasion forces and signed letters calling on all Catholics
- John M. Kirk, Between God and the Party: Religion and Politics in Revolutionary
Cuba (Tampa: University of South Florida Press, 1989).