Saint Charles of Brazil (Bishop Carlos Duarte-Costa) was ordained a Roman Catholic Priest on April 1, 1911. He was consecrated to be the Roman Catholic Diocesan Bishop of Botucatu, Brazil, on December 8, 1924, and served in that office until certain views he expressed about treatment of Brazils poor, by both the civil government and the Roman Catholic Church in Brazil, caused his removal from the Diocese of Botucatu. Bishop Duarte-Costa was subsequently named Titular Bishop of Maura by the late Bishop of Rome, Pius PP XII. Bishop Duarte-Costa’s criticisms of the fascist regime and oligarchy of Brazil in the 1930’s and 1940’s earned him repeated troubles and prison. In 1944 he was imprisoned by the dictator and remained there until pressure from President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill and others caused his release. Of interest is the apparent lack of active protest against this unjust imprisonment by either the Vatican or the other bishops of Brazil. Bishop Duarte-Costas criticisms of the Vatican, particularly about Vatican foreign policy during and following World War II toward Nazi Germany, were not well received at the Vatican, and he was eventually separated from the Roman Church by Pius PP XII. This action was taken only after his public denunciations that the Vatican Secretariat of State was issuing Vatican Passports to some high ranking former Nazi officials, who were then fleeing to South America, from the Allies. Bishop Duarte-Costa was a strong advocate in the 1930s for reform of the Roman Church; espousing many of the key positions that the Second Vatican Council would, thirty-five years later, enact. His positions included a more pastoral approach to divorce, challenged mandatory celibacy for the clergy, and rejected abuses of papal power, including the concept of Papal Infallibility, which the Bishop considered a misguided and false dogma. Bishop Duarte-Costa was involuntarily separated from the jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Church on July 6, 1945. This schism was, it should be noted, an act by the Roman Pontiff and was not initiated by Bishop Duarte-Costa. Duarte-Costa immediately established the independent Igreja Catolica Apostolica Brasileira (ICAB) on that same date which he led until his death in 1961.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 13:01:06 +0000
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