Carlos Duarte Costa: Testament of a Socialist Bishop

Apocryphile Press

1700 Shattuck Ave #81

Berkeley, CA 94709

www.apocryphilepress.com

Copyright © 2019 by Edward Jarvis

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-1-949643-23-7 | paperback

ISBN 978-1-949643-24-4 | epub

Ebook version 1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means— electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise— without written permission of the author and publisher, except for brief quotations in printed reviews.

Please join our mailing list at

www.apocryphilepress.com/free

We’ll keep you up-to-date on all our new releases,

and we’ll also send you a FREE BOOK. Visit us today!

They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water; and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

— REVELATION, CHAPTER 7, VERSES 16-17

The contradiction between the spirit and principles of our program and the religious convictions of the priest would in such circumstances be something that concerned him alone, his own private contradiction.

— V.I. LENIN

Is there in all the history of human folly a greater fool than a clergyman in politics?

— MR. DOOLEY

Contents

Foreword

Author’s Preface

I A BISHOP AND HIS TIME — OLD WORLD AND NEW SOCIETY

II A BISHOP AND HIS PROGRESS — FRIENDSHIPS AND RIVALRIES

III A BISHOP AND HIS DESTINY — PEACE AND WAR

IV A BISHOP AND HIS WORDS — ‘DECLARATION TO THE NATION’

V A BISHOP AND HIS LEGACY: I — ICAB

VI A BISHOP AND HIS LEGACY: II — INDEPENDENT CATHOLICISM

VII A BISHOP AND HIS STORY — ENDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS

APPENDIX I BISHOPS ORDAINED BY CARLOS DUARTE COSTA

APPENDIX II MANIFESTO Á NAÇÃO — ORIGINAL PORTUGUESE TEXT

APPENDIX III CANON AMORIM CORREA AND THE I.C.A.B. OF 1913

APPENDIX IV FOREWORD TO THE SOVIET POWER BY CARLOS DUARTE COSTA

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

SOURCES

Foreword

With rigor and meticulousness, Edward Jarvis’ book fills a gap in the knowledge of a key figure in world Catholicism. It represents, in fact, the first systematic study of an individual, Dom Carlos Duarte Costa, who directly or indirectly originated a large number of denominations; these denominations affirm both their belonging to the Catholic tradition as well as their independence from Rome. It is also the study of a bishop considered by many to be a precursor of the ‘Christian Left,’ particularly of Latin American Liberation Theology, and of the reform movements that arose in the Roman Catholic Church in the second half of the twentieth century.

Founder of ‘National Churches’ (and not only)

Dom Duarte Costa was first of all the founder, in 1945, of the Igreja Católica Apostólica Brasileira (ICAB) which, according to the federal census of 2010, counts 560,000 adherents (making it the largest ‘non-Roman’ Catholic Church in the world after the Philippine Independent Church), which Jarvis has already addressed in his indispensable God, Land & Freedom: the True Story of I.C.A.B. In Dom Duarte Costa’s Manifesto á Nação, which represents in some senses the ‘foundational’ document of ICAB, the bishop, excommunicated by Rome, challenges the primacy of the Pope and the Catholic Church’s connivance with right-wing totalitarian regimes, and calls for the distribution of the land to those who work it. He also offers an outline of ICAB: abolition of obligatory celibacy for priests, abolition of auricular confession, liturgy in local language, election of bishops by the diocesan community to then be confirmed by the clergy and the national episcopate, and recognition of divorce. After his death in 1961, ICAB experienced numerous splits, from which several communities were born — some are now extinct, others have in turn further splintered into several more groups, and others still have redefined themselves ‘Orthodox’ or ‘Old Catholic.’

From his ordinations, furthermore, springs a long list of churches around the world whose bishops trace their apostolic succession to Dom Duarte Costa. He followed in the footsteps of the better-known Arnold Harris Mathew (a Roman Catholic priest who, having married, was ordained as the Old Catholic Bishop for England in 1908, only to break with the Utrecht Union of Old Catholic Churches) and Joseph René Vilatte (another ex-Roman Catholic priest raised to the episcopate in 1892 by Archbishop Antonio Francisco Xavier Alvarez of the Independent Catholic Church of Ceylon, Goa and India, which operated by mandate of the Siro-Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch). Alongside Mathew and Vilatte, though perhaps with a more specific emphasis on founding churches of a ‘National’ character, Dom Duarte Costa is considered a founding father of the effervescent and pulviscular phenomenon of Independent Catholicism. This is made up of ecclesial communities that define themselves as Catholic because they profess the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, celebrate the seven sacraments, maintain the threefold ministry of Holy Orders and claim an unbroken apostolic succession, but do not acknowledge the authority, over them, of the Pope.

This religious universe is distinguished by its fluid nature, with initialisms that form and dissipate with frequency, communion agreements that alternate with schisms, priests and bishops who switch from one denomination (or jurisdiction, as they prefer to be called, considering themselves part of the one Catholic Church) to another, often having multiple affiliations. Furthermore, the majority of these groups consist of ‘micro-churches’ of one or two bishops, a few priests and deacons and a small number of members, and in some cases a bishop is ordained having no priests under their jurisdiction at all, and no community, meaning that another initialism may disappear when this sole bishop joins another group.

These ‘Independent (or Autocephalous) Catholic Churches’ may consist of communities, religious orders, and house-churches that tend to share, in addition to their small size, characteristics such as: access to ordination for a high percentage of its members; a higher ratio of clergy to members than in the mainstream denominations; centrality of sacramental life (especially the Eucharist); and clergy composed almost entirely of volunteers who conduct their ministry part-time, supporting themselves and their families with another job. The majority of the currently active groups have arisen in the last thirty years, some resulting from splits or expulsions from the Roman Catholic Church or from the Eastern Orthodox Churches, while some are offshoots of the Indian Orthodox Church. Others emerge from Protestant and Charismatic communities who have embraced a sacramental dimension and the historic apostolic succession, while still others derive from schisms of other, similar denominations.

The variety of theological tendencies, ecclesial structures, rules of internal discipline, and models of liturgical celebration is rather extensive. Practically all of the Independent Catholic Churches have a liturgy derived from the historical Christian rites, such as the Syrian, Byzantine or Roman, or a combination of two or more of these. All of them ascribe to a sacramental understanding of the Christian faith in tune with the understanding broadly common to the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Churches, the Syrian Church and the Anglican Church, while some adhere to Theosophical doctrines. Some of them maintain a ‘Roman Catholic’ image and structure (either post-Vatican II or ‘traditionalist’), some have a more ‘Orthodox,’ ‘Anglican,’ or even ‘Evangelical’ feel, while others have a mixed or individual style. There is considerable diversity in their positions on the ordination of women and sexually active homosexuals, on same-sex marriage, abortion, contraception, divorce and other issues also seen as controversial by the main Christian confessions. Almost no Independent Catholic Church promotes obligatory celibacy for priests, while only a minority allow women access to the priesthood. This pluralism is also visible on the sociopolitical level, where communities explicitly drawing on Liberation Theology contrast with others of a decidedly conservative orientation.

By some estimates, around ten million people adhere to Independent Catholic groups worldwide (a third of them belonging to the Philippine Independent Church, founded in 1902 by nationalist Catholic clerics in the context of the revolt against the Spanish in 1898, and currently in full communion with the Utrecht Union). Numbers are therefore a long way from the Evangelical and Pentecostal boom, and detractors frame the phenomenon as a collection of bizarre and psychologically troubled characters (for that matter Dom Duarte Costa was also labeled ‘disturbed’), vested interests (for example, Roman Catholic priests wanting to marry without abandoning ministry), or small groups of malcontents portraying themselves as ‘religious dissenters,’ and a contingent number of opportunists and rogues.

Lending some weight to this interpretation is the fact that scandal has not been unknown to some of these denominations, such as that which enveloped the Church of the Old Catholics in Brazil (which was once in communion with Utrecht, because it had been founded in the nineteen-thirties by missionaries of the Polish National Catholic Church of the USA, a Utrecht member church). In 2003 its Archbishop Primate, Dom Paulo Pereira, was assassinated, according to some by Dom John Wesley, a bishop he had expelled from the church and who went on to found the Ancient Catholic Church in Brazil. In a more typical case, Monsignor Alvaro Leonel Ramazzini Imeri, Roman Catholic bishop of Huehuetenango, Guatemala, learning of the episcopal consecration of two excommunicated priests in 2006 (Armando Duque of the Ancient Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church of Guatemala and Central America and Eduardo Aguirre of the Renewed Ecumenical Catholic Church of Guatemala) commented: These schisms are due to the personality of these priests, who have found, though, a favorable environment among charismatic groups left without pastoral accompaniment.

Among analysts who, on the other hand, recognize this as an authentic social phenomenon, some see it as the reemergence of a strand of Catholicism favorable to the creation of a National Church administratively separate from Rome, which was apparent during the independence struggles of the nineteenth century in various countries (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, etc.). Others, like the Argentinean scholar Oscar Gerometta, consider it part of the atomization of the contemporary religious experience. Still others point to the diffusion of models of Christianity typical to the United States, where around 250 Independent or Autocephalous Catholic Churches exist, with some 230,000 members, compared to 77 million Roman Catholics. Not a few interpret the phenomenon as a reaction to the refusal of the Roman Catholic Church to enact reforms such as the abolition of obligatory clerical celibacy. According to Dom Demetrio Valentini, Roman Catholic bishop, now emeritus, of Jales, Brazil, the phenomenon highlights the necessity for the Latin American Church, as well as the African and Asian Churches, to have their own autonomy and their own identity, that is to say, liturgy, ministries and theology of their own, in order to construct a Catholicism that identifies with local cultures. What is needed is a form of communion that allows diversity.

However, the churches emerging from ICAB have never constituted an effective international communion or a real college of bishops, but rather a great number of individual leaders, whose characters and personalities appear to have a very relevant, if not decisive impact. Even in Dom Duarte Costa’s homeland, where there are at least twenty-five non-Roman Catholic denominations (though the number may be double that, if other initialisms turn out to be verifiably active), as well as seven independent religious congregations, amounting to about fifty bishops, a thousand priests and several hundred thousand members, attempts to create a ‘National Council of Independent Catholic Churches of Brazil’ have never had success.

Prophet of Christian Socialism

Profiles of Dom Duarte Costa have often been manipulated and vitiated by the apologetic intent of his followers and the denigratory intent of his detractors. They have stressed the socially inspired nature of his actions, and have also, from time to time, depicted him as the promoter of a vague Christian Socialism, rather than the ingenuous victim of Stalinist propaganda (if not a puppet of the Kremlin), or as a forerunner of left-wing Christian movements and Liberation Theology.

Dom Agnaldo Soares, ICAB bishop of São Paulo, introducing the 1987 booklet Igreja Brasileira: Abençoada Rebeldía, by his Auxiliary, Dom Gerardo Albano de Freitas, confrontationally addressed the big names of Latin American theology such as the brothers Clodovis and Leonardo Boff, Frei Betto, Oscar Beozzo, Hugo Assmann, Rubem Alves, Julio Santana [sic], Milton Schwantes and others in Brazil, along with Gustavo Gutierrez, Otto Maduro, Pablo Richard, Joseph Comblin, Henrique [sic] Dussel and others around our continent and the seminaries, faculties, and theological study centers such as the Faculty of Our Lady of the Assumption in São Paulo, CEHILA in Bogotá, Colombia, and many other centers for the articulation of this new theological school. He asked them, Why do you not speak about Dom Carlos Duarte Costa, founder of ICAB and unquestionably a precursor of Liberation Theology? In the nineteen-forties he had already begun a theological reflection grounded in the faith experience of the people, using science as an indispensable element for understanding reality in the face of which the Church must preach and witness. He had already, in that era, outlined a good part of the terminology employed today, and even explicitly accepted the help of historical materialism.

Now, the Bishop of Botucatu, Dom Duarte Costa, was certainly a long-time opponent of the authoritarian regime of Getúlio Vargas. He took sides in favor of agrarian reform and state control of the oil industry, and he criticized the Church’s social teaching — considering it ‘fascist’ insofar as it defended private ownership of natural resources — and criticized its condemnation of Communism. After Brazil’s entry into war on the Allied side in 1942, he denounced the majority of the bishops and priests of Italian and German origin as agents of the Axis powers, asking the president of Brazil to expel them. He wrote the Foreword for the Brazilian edition of The Soviet Power (courtesy of a publishing house linked to the Brazilian Communist Party of Luiz Carlos Prestes) by Reverend Hewlett Johnson, Anglican Dean of Canterbury and sympathizer of the Soviet Union. The USSR, it should be remembered, came out of World War Two with enormous international prestige. Dom Duarte Costa defined it a soldier at the service of the Democracies, against the totalitarian tyrants. In 1944 the accusation of being a communist cost him house arrest for two months, and immediately after his excommunication he founded, and presided over, the ephemeral Christian Socialist Party, which proposed, along the same lines as the Manifesto à Nação, nationalization of the land and abolition of monopolies in order to gradually realize the ideals of Socialism. In the Act of Foundation of ICAB, under the banner of ‘God, Land and Freedom’ and with a journal entitled ‘Fight!’ it is affirmed that true Christianity is found among the humble, the workers, legitimate representatives of Jesus of Nazareth.

Even so, his reflections on the compatibility of Catholicism and Socialism, while making use of some Marxian terms of analysis (proletariat, surplus value, superstructure, imperialism, etc.) were rather cursory and certainly not as thorough as those resulting from dialogue between Christians and Marxists in the nineteen-sixties and -seventies. After his death, furthermore, ICAB turned in a much more conservative direction, devoting itself almost exclusively to a sacramental ministry and even, in the midst of the military dictatorship, accusing the Roman Catholic Church of having swapped Christ for Marx. The social sensibilities of its founder were obscured. However, within ICAB’s ranks there has always been a progressive tendency aiming to reinstate the reformist model of Dom Duarte Costa. To this end, in the nineteen-eighties, Dom de Freitas, himself linked to Liberation Theology, founded the ‘Land of God, Land of All’ movement, committed to the popular struggle for housing and urban reform in the Paulista capital. Meanwhile, one of de Freitas’ disciples, the layman Rosalvo Salgueiro, worked alongside Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, 1980 Nobel Peace Prize winner, in founding Servicio Paz y Justicia en America Latina (SERPAJ-AL) and serving as its executive secretary from 1987 to 1990. Today Salgueiro is still national coordinator of the Brazilian section of SERPAJ and was himself a candidate for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, for his commitment in favor of human rights. This direction appeared to reemerge within ICAB with Manifesto á Nação II, released in 2013 by the Bishop of Rio de Janeiro and President of the Episcopal Council of ICAB Dom Josivaldo Pereira de Oliveira. Echoing the tones of Dom Duarte Costa, at the height of a series of popular protests, he decried corruption, criticized a government subjugated to international capital, and globalization orchestrated by neoliberalism. He denounced the elites’ domination over the working class, national proletariat and workforce, who sustain the development of the country. He reaffirmed the need for a truly socialist agrarian reform and asked for forgiveness for all the times we should have more ardently placed ourselves at the side of the weak and oppressed. The limited diffusion of this text within ICAB itself demonstrates, nevertheless, the enduring divisions in the church.

Precursor of Reform in the Catholic Church

Similarly, focusing on the strictly ecclesial dimension, some commentators have highlighted Dom Duarte Costa’s proposed modifications of ecclesiastical discipline (overturning obligatory celibacy for priests, recognition of divorce and second marriages for believers, liturgy in local language, etc.) in order to cast the bishop of Botucatu and Maura as the harbinger of the Second Vatican Council and of the reform movements of the Roman Catholic Church that have arisen around the world in recent decades (associations of married priests, groups of LGBT Catholics, networks such as We Are Church and Women’s Ordination Worldwide etc.).

In fact, during his 1936 ad limina visit to Pius XI, Dom Duarte Costa proposed, fruitlessly, the administration of sacraments and celebration of Mass versus populi, with the tabernacle behind the altar, and in local language; the end of obligatory clerical celibacy; the blessing of second marriages of divorcees remarried civilly, so that they may participate in the Eucharist; replacing private confession with a communal one with general absolution; the distribution of communion under two species; the introduction of a permanent diaconate for married laymen; the participation of laypeople in the preaching of the Word and distribution of the Eucharist; the election of bishops by the local church; and the institution of a Council of Bishops to govern the Church alongside the Pope. These reforms were supposed to contribute to a change in the socioeconomic and sociopolitical status quo of the people of God, to be accompanied by the freeing-up of ecclesiastical property in order to establish charitable institutions, in the spirit of a more widespread redistribution of wealth. On the theological level he rejected the doctrine of original sin, he denied papal infallibility and the pope’s authority over other bishops; he demanded the abolition of many ecclesiastical titles, and he advocated the opening-up of the Catholic Church to Christians of other confessions and to the followers of the Afro-Brazilian religions. Many of these positions then found their realization in ICAB.

Dom Duarte Costa declared that his objective was to democratize the Church. Even so, his style of leadership was somewhat authoritarian and little inclined toward delegation, consultation and collegiality. Soon ICAB was almost solely dedicated to administering sacraments (sometimes also as a means to survive economically) to people who did not intend to undergo relevant preparatory courses required by the Roman Catholic Church, or who wanted to celebrate the sacraments in unacceptable conditions, such as remarriage of divorcees, or who rejected the progressive positions adopted by the National Conference of (Roman Catholic) Bishops of Brazil (CNBB). At the same time the Second Vatican Council launched some of the reforms championed by Dom Duarte Costa, such as the celebration of Mass versus populi and in local language, the reinstatement of the permanent diaconate for married laymen, the abolition of Minor Orders, the introduction of elements of participation by the people of God in the running of ecclesiastical structures, the creation of opportunities for episcopal collegiality (synods of bishops etc.), openness to ecumenism, in addition to forging a renewed vision of the relationship between Church and society.

Other issues raised by Dom Duarte Costa are today openly discussed in the Roman Catholic Church, especially by the wide range of movements calling for doctrinal and disciplinary changes, such as greater involvement by the local Church in the nomination of bishops and the ability of clerics to be married. Indeed, all of the ‘big questions’ facing the Roman Catholic Church today (from access of women to ministry to welcoming homosexual couples) find at least partial expression in the galaxy of micro-churches that have received ecclesial and sacramental form thanks to ICAB.

For this reason, beyond any readings that may appear anachronistic or propagandistic, understanding the figure of Dom Carlos Duarte Costa helps us to understand contemporary worldwide Catholicism.

Mauro Castagnaro

Author’s Preface

When my friend Fr. Giuseppe Nardozza was studying in seminary in Italy, he and his fellow seminarians were told about a local priest who, many years previously, had gone to Brazil as a fidei donum missionary. After struggling to find his place, this restless young priest had gotten involved with an alternative, rebel, ‘non-Roman’ Catholic Church. He jumped ship and within a few years had been made a bishop for this renegade Brazilian outfit. His name was Luigi Mascolo. After a while he had his mother brought over from Italy, and, taking her son’s word at face value, she is said to have ended her days believing him to be the Roman Catholic prelate of Rio de Janeiro. Giuseppe and his fellow seminarians were told this story as an illustration of how the validity of Holy Orders may extend to cases where communion with Rome is broken. The story also highlights a phenomenon within Catholicism that is steadily gaining more and more attention — breakaway, rebel Catholic groups that cut ties with the Vatican, enact the reforms they crave, and carry on their merry way. This phenomenon is generally referred to as Independent Catholicism. For the seminarians this was also a cautionary tale, of course, about how one of their predecessors had been led astray by worldly, social and political concerns.

Fr. Luigi Mascolo had joined something called the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church (Igreja Católica Apostólica Brasileira) or ICAB, which split from the Vatican in July 1945. It was founded by a then recently-excommunicated Roman Catholic bishop, Carlos Duarte Costa (1888-1961) and it is still very much alive and kicking. We do not know exactly when Carlos Duarte Costa first formulated the idea to break with Rome and found this new church, ICAB, but we do know the first recorded occasion that he voiced the idea to others — it was on his fifty-sixth birthday, 21 July 1944, during World War Two. We can therefore say that this book marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of Carlos Duarte Costa’s declaration of his intention to launch ICAB. The date of 21 July 1944 has personal significance for me — my father was born on that day — but what else do we know about it? On Friday, 21 July 1944, Carlos Duarte Costa’s countrymen of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force continued to disembark in Italy to join the Allies’ struggle in advancing to the Gothic Line. In the Pacific theater of