Carlos Duarte Costa - Attempts at Church and Societal Reform

Attempts At Church and Societal Reform

In the 1930s Duarte Costa became deeply involved in the social and political changes taking place in Brazil. Brazil's economy had collapsed in 1929 as a result of the Great Depression, and a populist military regime had taken over the government in 1930. Led by Getúlio Vargas, the new government had an erratic policy record in its early years, sometimes anti-clerical and anti-aristocratic, sometimes swinging the opposite direction. In 1932 Duarte Costa became a leading spokesman for the Catholic Electoral League, which was organized by the Church to lobby for Christian principles in the laws and acts of the Government.

In 1932 Duarte Costa played an active role in the Constitutionalist Revolution, a failed attempt to restore constitutional government to Brazil. Duarte Costa formed a "Battalion of the Bishop" to fight on the side of the Constitutionalist troops, and helped finance the rebellion by selling off most of the diocese's assets, along with his own personal possessions. Duarte Costa's support for the Constitutionalist Revolution earned him the animosity of President Vargas, signaling the beginning of a long period of rocky relations between Duarte Costa and the Brazilian government.

In 1936 Duarte Costa made his second ad limina visit to Rome, meeting with Pope Pius XI in the Vatican. He presented the Pope with a list of quite radical (for the time) requests for the clergy and people of his diocese, including:

• celebration of the Mass and administration of the sacraments in the vernacular language;
• permission for clergy to marry;
• the abolition of auricular confession, replacing it with general or communal confession and absolution;
• distribution of Holy Communion to the laity under both kinds (i.e., bread and wine);
• institution of the permanent diaconate open to married men;
• celebration of the Mass "versus populi" (facing the people) with the priest behind the altar;
• creation of a Council of Advice, composed of bishops who would govern the Church together with the Pope;
• participation of laypersons in the administration of the Word, of the Eucharist, and in evangelization.

These requests were not accepted by the Pope at that time, although twenty-five years later many were permitted by the Second Vatican Council.

In early 1937 President Vargas, fed up with Duarte Costa for his continued public denunciation of the government, petitioned the Holy See for his removal from the Diocese of Botucatu. The Vatican was unwilling to do so directly, so the Apostolic Nuncio in Brazil entered into an agreement with the Secretary of the Diocese of Botucatu to obtain the resignation of Duarte Costa as diocesan bishop. In an act of deception, a resignation letter was placed into a stack of documents which Duarte Costa had to sign in short order. He signed the letter, but upon realizing what had happened, he informed the Holy See that he had signed the document mistakenly without reading it. The Holy See renounced claims that it was a forgery based on statements from the secretary of the diocese, and the resignation was accepted by Pope Pius XI on October 6, 1937.

After the acceptance of his resignation, Duarte Costa was appointed titular bishop of Maura, an extinct diocese in Africa.