BY ELAINE DE VALLE

  Monsignor Agustín Román, auxiliary bishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Miami, urged Cuban exiles Friday to promote the pastoral letter on social and economic reform issued this week by Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino, archbishop of Havana.

  Román also asked exiles to refrain from insulting or making personal attacks against the Cuban prelate.

  Referring to Bishop Ortega's statements, Román told El Nuevo Herald that ``this document has great usefulness for the Cuban people and we should cooperate with its dissemination from here, by all available means, instead of discrediting the cardinal.

  ''I hope the local media won't engage in personal attacks, as we often hear on the radio, because that tends to confuse people at a crucial moment for Cuba,'' Román said.

  Exile leaders and analysts called Tuesday's comments by Ortega, the highest Catholic Church official in Cuba, the latest sign of frustration with the regime's resistance to economic and social reforms.

  Ortega used the 150th anniversary of the death of Father Félix Varela -- a Cuban priest active in the fight for independence from Spain -- to write a pastoral letter that urges the communist regime to ease controls and allow Cubans more independence of thought and action.

  Ortega's letter -- which longtime Cuba watchers believe contains some of the strongest criticism ever from the church under Fidel Castro's rule -- comes as the
  government cracks down on dissidents as well as ordinary Cubans who run illegal businesses that had been tolerated before.

  Jaime Suchlicki, director of the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies, said the church is reacting to a variety of factors.

  "One, that the Cuban regime has not provided much space for the Catholic Church since the pope's visit. Two, that Castro has been moving closer to radical regimes such as Iran, Iraq and China. And three, that it has begun to clamp down on the opposition.''

  Said Joe Garcia, executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation: ``Ortega is aware, as is all his flock, the dire conditions that exist in Cuba, both
  economically and morally.''

  Some also believe the church in Cuba is acting on the behest or advice of the Vatican.

  ''This letter didn't come out of a vacuum,'' said Bishop Thomas Wenski of Miami, who travels to the island often as head of Catholic Charities and met with Ortega some weeks ago.

 El Nuevo Herald reporter Wilfredo Cancio Isla contributed to this report.