Worldwide Communion of Catholic Apostolic Churches (WCCAC) :: View topic - Saint Carlos of Brazil, and the begining of ICAB

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The Igreja Catolica Apostolica Brasileira

According to the figures in our current records the Igreja Catolica Apostolica Brasileira has estimated membership of one million members, stretching all over the world, in approximately 16 countries with heads of churches and scores of bishops, priests, deacons, congregations and churches.

Countries such as: Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Canada, Scandinavia, Philippines, France, Italy, Ecuador, Venezuela, Portugal, United Kingdom & Ireland, Sweden, United States of America, Spain, Panama, Columbia, Argentina, Australia, and Germany.

Infancy to Vocation

The founder of the legal entity of the Brazilian Catholic Apostolica Church (ICAB) was born in the City of Rio de Janeiro, July 21, 1888 in the neighborhood of Saint Antonio, in the residence of his uncle, then Eduardo Duarte Da Silva. Son of Joao Matta Francisco Costa, and Maria Carlota Duarte Da Silva Costa, he was baptized on September 3, 1888, by the priest Francisco Goulart, and confirmed by Bishop Joao Eberhard.

At the age of nine, he made his first communion, on July 24, 1897, in the Cathedral of Uberaba, at the hands of his uncle, Dom Eduardo Duarte Silva. He concluded his primary studies in the Santa Rosa College, in Rio De Janeiro. Later, his uncle was raised to the Episcopal Dignity, being nominated Diocesan Bishop with his See in Uberaba, exerting a dynamic and efficient apostolate in the pasturing of the souls in his Diocese. As a child of nine years, Carlos Duarte Costa, was taken by his uncle Dom Eduardo Duarte Silva, now a Bishop, to Rome to study in the American College Boarding school Pius-Latin, where he completed courses in the minor seminary.

In 1905, he returned to Brazil for health reasons, having been entered in the largest seminary in Uberaba, for the Congregation of Augustinian Priests, where he finished his Philosophical and Theological studies in the Major Seminary.

Deacon Carlos Duarte Costa was a senior cleric for his uncle, Dom Eduardo Duarte Silva, in the Cathedral Church of Uberaba. In the same Cathedral Church, Fr. Carlos Duarte Costa, celebrated his first Mass, in a Cathedral filled with the faithful on May 04, 1911. After his ordination, he returned to Rome to better himself, and obtained a Doctorate in Theology, in the Gregorian Pontifical University of Rome.

Returning from Rome, he worked with his uncle, Dom Eduardo in Uberaba, as secretary of the Diocese. The priest, Fr. Carlos Duarte Costa, was awarded with title of Monsignor for the publication of a catechism for children. Soon afterwards, he was nominated Apostolic Protonatario and General Secretary of the Archdiocese of Rio De Janeiro, for Sebastiao Cardinal Helm of the Silveira Cintra, succeeding Dom Cardinal Joaquin Arcoverde Albuquerque Cavalcante, executing this function until May 24, 1923, when the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Rio De Janeiro was nominated.

Bishop of Botucatu

Since the death of Dom Lacio in 1923, Botucatu remained a vacant diocese. For his work, for his dynamism and virtues, in the fulfillment of his duty in the Archdiocese of Rio De Janeiro, on July 04, 1924, Pope Pius XI nominated Dom Carlos as the Bishop of Botucatu. His Episcopal consecration occurred on December 8, 1924, in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Rio De Janeiro, being consecrated by Cardinal Dom Sebastian Leme da Silveira Cintra, having as assistants: Dom Alberto Jose Gonzales, Bishop of Ribeirao Preto and Dom Benedict Pablo Alves de Souza, Diocesan Bishop of the Holy Spirit.

Political and Social Influence

In the 1930’s, he was one of the great articulators of Catholic Electoral Union, where Catholics also defended the catholic vote against the politicians. It intended of this to form and to preserve the Christian principle in the Laws and Acts of the Politicians, as for example, the creation of a rule of law for the divorce, that it is an act denied the poor persons for the Roman Catholic Church, but widely supported for the Bible. In 1932, on the occasion of the Constitutionalist Revolution, Dom Carlos Duarte Costa formed a “Diocesan Battalion of the Hunters ", generally known as the "Battalion of the Bishop" to fight to the side of the Constitutionalist Troops. For this he collected deep between the fidiciary offices, he sold his pectoral gold cross with amethyst and precious gems, and a farm of the Diocese, demonstrating his deep love to the cause of the freedom and to the democratic institutions. Such acts caused great national repercussions; it had who supported it, therefore being Dom Carioca Carlos, he raised the Sao Paulo flag and he made many more compatriots; but he also had those who disapproved, and were envious of his popularity, as he, acting as a true Moses, was searching for all the forms and ways of freedom for the Brazilian people.

Ecclesiastical Renovation and Persecution

In 1936, Dom Carlos Duarte Costa made his second "ad-limina" visit to Rome, to visit Pope Pius XI, in the Vatican. He presented him various requests for the clergy of his diocese and, consequently, for the clergy of Brazil. He requested permission for the maintenance of the largest seminary in his diocese, the celebration of the Holy Mass and the administration of the sacraments in the vernacular language or either, in Portuguese, the permission for clergy to marry, and the abolition of auricular confession, replacing it with general or communitarian confession, distribution of the Holy Communion to the laity under both species of the consecrated Bread and Wine, the institution of the Permanent Diaconate for the married laypeople, the celebration of the Holy Mass "Versus Populi", or either, facing the people, with the Sacrario detras of the Altar, the organization of a Council of Advice, constituted of Bishops to govern the Church, together with the Pope, the participation of the laypersons in the administration of the Word, of the Eucharistic and the Evangelization. These requests made by Bishop Duarte Costa were not accepted by the Pope of that time, but years later, Pope John XXIII placed some in practice through Vatican Council II. Some claims have been made that Dom Carlos Duarte Costa was regarded poorly by the Roman Curia of the Vatican. After twelve years leading the Diocese of Botucatu, Dom Carlos was obliged to renounce due the two great problems: his involvement in the differing political position from the Roman Church, and what he considered the poor administration of the property of the Diocese, that he placed at the disposal of the poor, disobeying the Pope.

Due to the construction of the new Cathedral, of the Orphanage and the College, in addition to other projects, Dom Carlos Duarte Costa initiated the sale of some property of the Diocese, to be able to erase the debt, with the purpose to support, and to help the hungry poor persons of the time. The benefits of his shining administration are still standing in the Sao Paulo city of Botucatu, as a testimony of his capacity and determination.

Political Pressure and Forced Resignation

President Getulio Vargas, infuriated with Dom Carlos Duarte Costa, for his having convinced a battalion of soldiers from the Constitutionalistic Troops to join him in his struggle against the corruption of the government, President Vargas asked the Holy See for the removal of Dom Carlos Duarte Costa from the Diocese of Botucatu.

The Vatican could not do it directly, so the Apostolic Nuncio in Brazil entered into an agreement with the Secretary of the Diocese of Botucatu to obtain the resignation of Dom Carlos Duarte Costa, as Diocesan Bishop of Botucatu. This evil and perverse secretary, in the daily documents and reports that Dom Carlos Duarte Costa always had to sign, placed the resignation letter within a series of documents, which Dom Carlos Duarte Costa signed as a result of the deception.

The Diocesan of Botucatu informed the Holy See that Dom Carlos Duarte Costa had signed the document mistakenly without reading it. This happened in the beginning of 1937. The Holy See renounced claims that it was a forgery, based on the secretary of the Diocese, and the resignation was accepted by Pope Pious XI on October 6, 1937. After the acceptance of the resignation, Dom Carlos was appointed Titular Bishop of Maura, an extinct Diocese.

Titular Bishop of Maura

After his "forced resignation", Dom Carlos Duarte Costa, definitively abandoned the life of rich capitalism, imposed by the Vatican, and went to live humbly, in the city of Rio De Janeiro as Bishop Emeritus de Botucatu, with title of titular Bishop of Maura, where he obtained the determined support of his protector, Cardinal Dom Sebastiao Leme da Silveira Cintra, who granted permission to him to keep the particular Chapel, with the Blessed Sacrament in its residence, as well as presiding over marriage, to celebrate festive and solemn masses and to manage the Sacrament of the Chrism in the parishes where he was invited by the respective vicars.

At this time he established the Messenger magazine "Nossos", a vehicle to spread the devotion to Our Holy Mother. Dom Carlos Duarte Costa, always courageous, he analyzed all the human problems, of the necessary goods, of the degeneration of the Church of Rome.

Divergence from the Roman Church

What Dom Carlos had carried through in Botucatu, he was to start alone. Speaking against the domination that oppressed the poor Brazilian people and mainly the sacrifices of the work force, he renounced the luxury and material products obtained through their oppressed labor. Dom Carlos Duarte Costa intensified his politic work and was critical of the efforts of the Roman Catholic Church.

Dom Carlos Duarte Costa had formed a variety of attitudes against the politics of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1944, Dom Carlos Duarte Costa wrote the preface of the book "the Soviet Power", written by Rev. Hewlett Johnson, the dean of Canterbury, of the Anglican Church. Such an act had very positives repercussions in all the country: How a Catholic Bishop could defend a Protestant Bishop? He criticized the periodicals and the Encyclicals from the Pope, specifically, Rerum Novarum of Pope Leo XIII and Quadragesimo Ano of Pope Pius XI and Divina Redemptoris, he denounced the Roman Catholic priests of German and Italian nationality, residing in Brazil, as agents in the service of German Nazism and Italian Fascism and as guilty of the destruction of the Brazilian warships for German submarines.

Dom Carlos Duarte Costa went very well in Rio de Janeiro, under the protection of Archbishop Cardinal Dom Sebastiao Leme da Silveira Cintra, but with the death of his protector and friend, was nominated as Archbishop of Rio De Janeiro, Dom Jayme de Barros Camara. The Cardinal persecuted him, and pursued it to the extreme cutting all the Episcopal exemptions to him that had been granted by his predecessor, in the Archdiocese of Rio De Janeiro.

On July 10, 1944, Dom Carlos Duarte Costa was forbidden to preach to the Gospel and to hear the confessions of the faithful, the result of a decision pronounced by the Ecclesiastical Chamber in retaliation for the pronouncements of the Bishop of Maura against the dogmas and doctrines of subjugation taught by the Roman Catholic Church.

Excommunication

On June 06, 1944, Dom Carlos Duarte Costa, by the order of the government, facilitated by the Apostolic Nuncio joining the Brazilian fascists, was imprisoned and led to Belo Horizonte - MG, where he was accused of being a communist sympathizer, and remained imprisoned until 06 September 1944, when the order against the Brazilian Association of the Press was lifted, the government of Mexico and the United Nations, intervened together to the Brazilian Government through its intermediaries of their embassies in favor of Dom Carlos Duarte Costa.

Several warnings had been given to Dom Carlos Duarte Costa, from the Roman Apostolic administration. But the more he was warned, more he defended the Christian faith, the laborers, the existing native land against the fascists and Nazis in the Church and its hierarchy. Without any hope of the submission of Dom Carlos Duarte Costa, the Vatican, enraged, laid against Dom Carlos Duarte Costa, Bishop of Maura, the penalty of excommunication on July 02, 1945.

The Founding of ICAB

When he learned of the excommunication, Dom Carlos Duarte Costa, responded, establishing the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic National Church (ICAB) on July 6, 1945. The extract of the statutes of the new Church was published in Federal official gazette, page 12, 637, July 25, 1945. The Brazilian Catholic Apostolica Church was registered in book No 2 of the Civil Societies, under Number 107.966 of the Book A, Number 04.

On August 18, 1945, Dom Carlos Duarte Costa published in the press of the world, his wonderful "Manifesto to the Nation", where he criticized the Roman Catholic Church, and he spoke of his established Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church.

Although Dom Carlos Duarte Costa, already had left the Roman Catholic Church, and was no longer acting as a bishop of that church in any way, on July 24, 1946 he was declared, "excommunicado vitando", that is, excommunicated to the severest degree that exists, to prevent Roman Catholics from having anything to do with him whatsoever. This excommunication for his “schismatic audacity” was to make him “return to the unity of the true Church.”

Persecution against ICAB

When Dom Carlos Duarte Costa established ICAB, he used the same vestments, insignia and the same rites of the Roman Catholic Church, therefore, the cardinals of Sao Paulo and Rio De Janeiro had appealed to the Minister of Justice and the President of the Brazilian Republic.

On September 27, 1948, the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church was closed, by virtue of legal action of the Courts of the Republic, Dr. Haroldo Teixeira Valladao, July 07, 1948, published the decision in the official Federal gazette of September 25, of the same year.

On 30 of November 1948, Dom Carlos Duarte Costa entered in the Federal Court of Appeals, and with a Writ of Mandamus, petitioned for the Judges Carpenter Luiz and Benjamin, requiring the reopening of ICAB.

The Brazilian Government, through their intermediary of the Minister of Justice, Dr. Agamenon Magalhaes, on September 22, 1948, said, "it is not intention of the Government to submit the heads, or fiduciary offices of the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church to any constraint in its freedom of worship, while it uses vestments, insignia, badges and different rites than that of the Roman Catholic Church.

Reopening the Churches, Dom Carlos Duarte Costa, instituted in ICAB, Rites, vestments, proper insignias, and gray cassocks for the Priests. He instituted gray soutanes with cinctures, for the bishops, grey soutanes with red cinctures, red bands and stockings, to obey the order of the Minister of Justice, Dr. Agamenon Magalhaes, in order not to be confused with the Roman Church.

Death, Exalted to the Altars

Dom Carlos Duarte Costa guided, directed and governed the Brazilian Church with a firm hand for 16 years, until he fell asleep in Christ, in Rio De Janeiro March 26, 1961, on Palm Sunday. At that time, Dom Carlos Duarte Costa, at 73 years age, had 50 Priests and 37 Bishops. The death of Dom Carlos Duarte Costa moved all of the Brazilian people, mainly in the City of Rio De Janeiro. Igreja-Mae and Couto Street of fidiciary offices had been overcrowded with people. The people wanted to see their Shepherd. It was a burial worthy of a Bishop who was very much loved by the people. The coffin with the mortal remains of Dom Carlos Duarte Costa proceeded down Igreja-Mae, on Couto No 54 Street, where Dom Carlos Duarte Costa was entombed with all the honors of a Pontiff, in the presence of the Bishops of ICAB.

The life of Dom Carlos Duarte Costa was irrepressibly evangelical, being distinguished for its absolute chastity, devotion the Holy Virgin Maria and the Eucharistic, where he passed several hours daily, in worship to the most august Sacrament of the Altar. Therefore, all who have had appealed to the Triune God, through his intercession, had been blessed with favors and miracles. Due to everything he had done, he was granted the honor of the altars by the national episcopate on July 4 – 6, 1970, on the Street of the Couto, n 54, quarter of the Penha, in Rio De Janeiro, with the title of “Sao Carlos of Brazil”.

Luis Fernando Castillo Mendez

The fourth Bishop that Dom Carlos Duarte Costa gave the Apostolic Succession to was Bishop Dom Luis Fernando Castillo Mendez, in the Balboa Republic of Panama on May 3, 1948, with the title of “Patriarch of Caracas” and Primate of Venezuela, for having founded the Venezuelan Catholic Apostolic National Church. Later in June 1950, Dom Luis Fernando Castillo Mendez was pursued by the government of Venezuela, by order of the Roman Catholic Church. He escaped to Brazil, where he was nominated by Dom Carlos Duarte Costa to be the Diocesan Bishop of Brasilia, and later acquired Brazilian citizenship. Upon the death of Duarte Costa, he became the Patriarch of Brazil and the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church.

Salomão Barbosa Ferraz

Bishop Salomão Barbosa Ferraz was a former Roman Catholic Priest, was consecrated a bishop by Bishop Carlos Duarte Costa for the Igreja Catolica Apostolica Brasileira (ICAB) in 1945. In 1958, during the late pontificate of Pope Pius XII, he reconciled with the Roman Catholic Church. Bishop Ferraz was named by the Holy See to be Titular Bishop of Eleuterna on May 12, 1963. Although still married, Bishop Ferraz was later appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Rio de Janeiro by Pope John XXIII. Bishop Ferraz was later called by Pope Paul VI to serve on a working commission of the Second Vatican Council and addressed the Council Fathers in session.

It is notable that Bishop Ferraz was never re-consecrated by the Roman Catholic Church, even conditionally (sub conditione), and later was buried with the full honors accorded Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Church by accepting Bishop Ferraz in this manner, without any re-consecration, affirm de jure and de facto the sacramental validity of the Duarte Costa Apostolic Succession lines of what is commonly known as the "Rebiba Apostolic Succession."

Bishop Orlando Arce-Moya

Bishop Moya was consecrated by Bishop Carlos Duarte Costa on November 30, 1956, with the title of Bishop of Santiago, Chile, for the Chilean Catholic National Church (Igreja Nacional Chilena). Bishop Moya left the Church Apostolic National many years later, and was received by the Patriarch of the West, Pope John XXIII of the Roman Catholic Church. Bishop Moya was never reconsecrated not even sub-conditione, and he was accepted as having valid Episcopal orders. He was appointed by the Vatican as Auxiliary Bishop to the Cardinal Archbishop of Madrid, Spain. Bishop Moya died some years later.

News Articles About St. Carlos of Brazil

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**A New York Times article:
THE NEW YORK TIMES
September 22, 1942

BISHOP URGES WEEDING OUT
RIO DE JANEIRO, September 21 (U.P.)

The Bishop of Sao Paulo, Mgr. Carlos Duarte Costa, in a telegram to President Getulio Vargas today, urged that priests with Fascist and Falangist tendencies be forced to retire "in order to prevent in Brazil what happened in France."

The message urged spiritual mobilization as well as military mobilization in Brazil.

Several German priests and nuns, who have been operating clandestine radio transmitters hidden under altars and in cemetery chapels, were arrested in five different localities, dispatches from the State of Santa Catalina reported today.

Santa Catalina has the largest German population of any State in Brazil.

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**A New York Times article:
THE NEW YORK TIMES
JULY 7, 1945

A BRAZILIAN BISHOP IS EXCOMMUNICATED
RIO DE JANEIRO, July 6

The Most Rev. Don Carlos Duarte da Costa, Catholic Bishop of Maura in Sao Paulo State, was excommunicated today, the Vatican asserting that he had violated canon law tenets by raising the pennon of rebellion and preaching discord to the faithful.

The Most Rev. Jaime de Barros Camara, Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro, authorized by the Vatican, circularized the excommunication in all the Brazilian churches.

Bishop Duarte has been regularly advocating the molding of the present Catholic Church under more liberal foundations and doing away with practices which he said, worked when the church was founded but which had no part in the modern world.

He has been called Communist and was once questioned by the police. He has been championing the abolition of celibacy. Priests, he has said, should be married and raise families. He has been condemning the present status of priests as immoral.

The revision of the Brazilian laws on divorce, which the Catholic Church has fought regularly every time in the past when some lawmaker in Congress here brought up the matter for the Government to enact laws making divorce legal, was one of his favorite topics.

Apparently realizing that he was fighting a losing battle, he recently launched a campaign calling on priests to marry, leave the church and form a "national Christian church" in which all priests would have wives and in which divorce would be allowed.

To a correspondent on the newspaper “Globo” in Sao Paulo, Bishop Duarte declared that today was founded the "Brazilian Catholic Church." He added that it had many followers and would continue to fight "Roman Church fascism."

He also said that he would continue to use priestly cassock and all his Episcopal insignia, but would no longer use the title Bishop of Maura, "because now I am the Bishop of Rio de Janeiro."
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** A TIME Magazine article:
TIME
REBEL IN RIO
July 23, 1945

The Roman Catholic Church excommunicated one of its bishops last week. Said the bishop blandly: "I consider today one of the happiest days of my life."

It was not the first time Dom Carlos Duarte da Costa, onetime Bishop of Botucatu in Sao Paulo, had been in his church's black books. In 1934, he publicly refused to follow a papal nunciate's political instructions. He was thereupon quietly retired, given the honorary title of Bishop of Maura, no diocese. From the outside, Duarte took an increasingly critical view of what he considered his church's political leanings. He became increasingly outspoken and unpopular with his superiors.

Last May, 57-year-old Bishop Duarte gave newspaper interviews accusing Brazil's papal nunciate of Nazi-Fascist spying. He accused Rome of aiding and abetting Hitler. Finally he heretically announced plans to set up his own Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church, in which priests would be permitted to marry (and hold regular jobs in the lay world), confessions and rosaries would be abolished, bishops would be elected by popular vote. After that, his excommunication was inevitable.

Last week Dom Carlos, calling himself "Bishop of Rio de Janeiro," told reporters that he hopes soon to ordain ten married lawyers and professional men as priests in his new church.

Meanwhile, in the tiny blue-walled chapel that is part of his unostentatious house in Rio's suburbs, he baptizes, marries, celebrates Mass daily. The Vatican appeared undisturbed by its latest rival.

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**A New York Times article:
THE NEW YORK TIMES
March 27, 1961
CARLOS DUARTE, 72

LED BRAZIL CHURCH
RIO DE JANEIRO, March 27

Carlos Duarte Costa, the self-styled Bishop of Maura, who founded the schismatic Brazilian Apostolic Catholic Church, died here yesterday of a liver ailment. He was 72 years old.

The Bishop of Maura, who was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1911, rose to a high place in the Brazilian hierarchy, becoming the Diocesan Bishop of Botucatu in 1924. But in 1939, he broke with the Catholic Church, was excommunicated, and founded the Brazilian Apostolic Catholic Church.

That church now has Bishops in eleven Brazilian states and in Brasilia, the capital.

But Bishop Duarte died without naming a successor, who is to be chosen by a conclave of Bishops of the church.

Characteristics of the church founded by the Bishop of Maura were that its priests could marry and that mass, which follows Roman Catholic doctrine, is said in Portuguese.

The church's activities are semisecret, however, and masses are said usually in private homes. The membership in not known.

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**A New York Times article:
THE NEW YORK TIMES
August 3, 1973

20,000 MEMBERS CLAIMED
RIO DE JANEIRO, July 27

The young Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church is said to have a total of 20,000 believers, 34 bishops and 200 priests. The church is growing rapidly in the Sao Paulo area and in Brasilia and has branches in most of the country. But until now it has been weak in the northeast.

"What they hope to do is to replace the Roman Catholic hierarchy with a national hierarchy, taking advantage of the current trend of nationalism in Latin America," a Roman Catholic sociologist said in an interview.
The Roman Catholic Church does not recognize the Brazilian church because it was founded by Carlos Duarte Costa, former Bishop of Botucatu, Sao Paulo, who had been excommunicated for his pro-Communist views.

A revolutionary, he favored agrarian reform and state control of the oil industry, and he disputed the Vatican's set ideas on priestly celibacy, divorce, the taxation of sacraments and traditional dress and rituals. He was canonized by the Brazilian church in 1970.

The Brazilian church adopted a much more conservative line after Duarte Costa's death in 1961.

Today it is ardently anti-Communist and accuses the Roman Catholics of leftist leanings.

[excerpted from "Igrejas Catolicas Nacionais" by Dom Luis Fernando Castillo Mendez (Brasilia 2005) translated into English, several reports from "TIME" and "The New York Times", copyrighted, all rights reserved]
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Bishop Andre' Jhohn-William Queen, SCR
Vicar General
Catholic Apostolic National Church
Phone: 773.942.4660