IMHO the church is a huge part of the problem. Specifically the catholic church. They help maintain the status quo, because they benefit from it. There is an unholy marriage between the church and state in the DR. The government gets support from the church (I.e. People are going to go on a general strike, the cardinal calls for patience, dialogue, blah...blah...blah...the strike is cancelled or held off until the situation is "resolved"), the church in turn gets whatever it wants (I.e. Brand new church buildings paid for by the government with money that could be better spent on schools or hospitals). The catholic church propagates ignorance in a country already lacking in education (I.e. advocating to not use preservatives in country with a very high rate of births and AIDS). Not to mention what the priests do. With the large amount of pedophile priests that exist and what they get away with, even in the US, I can only imagine what they get away with in countries like the DR, where justice in nonexistent, and nobody dares accuse a priest of wrongdoing. I would love nothing more to see the state tell the catholic church to go F%$* themselves. To stop meddling in politics, to build their own churches, just like all other religions do, and to divert whatever money the church gets now to planned parenthood.
Having said all that, I have to acknowledge that the reality is a very different story. The catholic church wields enormous power in the DR. I remember in 1978, my grandmother (who was a longtime Balaguer sympathizer) telling me that she was to vote for the PRD, because the priest had said in church that Balaguer was not good and to look at the alternatives...meaning The PRD. As a result Balaguer lost the election. In other words if you want to stay in power in the DR you have to play ball with the catholic church, whether you want to or not.