Indirect Confrontation:The Evolution of the Political Strategy of the Cuban Catholic
ists to the same table with government officials. In calling for these
oppositional actors to come together in dialogue, Cuban church lead-
ers were positioning themselves as the kind of neutral leaders that
could mediate such a dialogue. The church hierarchy acted and contin-
ues to act strategically; in the pages of Palabra Nueva, Orlando
Márquez refers to the strategic element of church behavior as “pru-
dence”—the prudence not to tread into the realm of direct confronta-
tion and risk the church’s institutional integrity.
The adherence of church leaders to a strategy that is prudent has
also revealed the extent to which church leaders are rational actors
with their own interests that supersede moral or political principles.
This strategy has finally elevated the status of the Cuban Catholic
Church but has also earned the church a deserved reputation for put-
ting interests above principles, especially in the eyes of those dissi-
dents that have accrued the most risk for engaging in directly
confrontational activities. The primary concern for the Cuban Catho-
lic Church has been to preserve its independence, a feat it has
achieved and that is starting to reap real benefits, but that has also
drawn a significant degree of criticism on the church.
Since 1986, the Cuban Catholic Church has also sought to become
a missionary church, one that finds its spiritual calling and social foun-
dation in the grassroots, in a laity that has held on to its faith in the
context of a broader society that regards the institutional indepen-
dence of the church as cause for suspicion. It has become a church
with no official status or privileges, with no elite schools to educate
the rich and with no prominent moral voice in the national media. It
is, however, completely dedicated to providing moral and spiritual
nourishment to its growing laity and to reestablishing its role as a lead-
ing public voice in Cuban society. And it is the one national institution
in Cuba that has been, for almost 25 years, sowing the seeds of
democracy.
Cuban church leaders will attempt to play a significant social role in
the event of a regime transition in Cuba. Their positions as opposi-