210 Chapter 9
it. Now, the moment appeared opportune to initiate a return to con-
tentious politics. Two years after the Soviet collapse, the 11 bishops
that made up the COCC issued a harsh critique of the Cuban Revolu-
tion—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 let-
ter El amor todo lo espera (Love Endures All Things) with words like dia-
logue, reconciliation, and respect.
Reflecting the dire economic situation spurred by the collapse of
the Soviet Union, the bishops placed the blame on poor economic
and political governance. They made a litany of suggestions for politi-
cal 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 Catholic Church’s true political sympathies
lied. Amidst the invocation of the search for unity and reconciliation,
the bishops identified a series of political “irritants” that must be erad-
icated along with necessary economic changes. These “irritants”
included the “omnipresent and exclusionary” character of the national
ideology, the lack of an independent judiciary, the “excessive control”
of the Organs of State Security, and the high number of political pris-
oners in Cuban jails.^5
However, unlike in similar letters written in the 1960s, the COCC
did not make direct denunciations of the state, government officials,
or even of Marxist ideology. Rather, the bishops focused their atten-
tion on critiquing the national ideology's omnipresence rather than its
content. The Organs of State Security, argued the bishops, at times
intrude on the strictly private lives of citizens and produce a social fear
that is “hard to define but palpable to feel.” In relation to the prob-
lem of political prisoners, the bishops reasoned that under a concilia-
tory political climate men could be freed who have been imprisoned
- Conferencia de Obispos Católicos de Cuba, La Voz de la Iglesia en Cuba: 100 Documen-
tos Episcopales (D.F., México: Obra Nacional de la Buen Prensa, A.C., 1995), pgs. 410-