Carlos Duarte Costa - Founding of ICAB

Founding of ICAB

A few days after learning of his excommunication, Duarte Costa established the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church (ICAB). Its articles of incorporation were published in the federal register on July 25, and the church was legally registered as a civil society. On August 18, 1945 Duarte Costas published a "Manifesto to the Nation", in which he again criticized the Roman Catholic Church and promoted his new national Church. Although he had already been excommunicated, on July 24, 1946 he was declared "excommunicado vitando", that is, excommunicated to the severest degree that exists. This was the final decree and was intended to prevent Catholics from having anything to do with him whatsoever.

After establishing the ICAB, Duarte Costa continued to use the same vestments, insignia, and rites as he had in the Catholic Church. This provoked the cardinals of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro to appeal to the Minister of Justice and the President himself for an injunction against both him and the ICAB. On September 27, 1948, the ICAB churches were closed by the courts, on the grounds that they were deceiving the public into thinking they were Catholic churches and clergy. Duarte Costa quickly filed an appeal, and in 1949 the Supreme Court ruled that the ICAB could reopen its doors, on condition that the church use a modified liturgy and its clergy wear gray cassocks, to minimize the potential for confusion with Roman Catholics.

With the formation of ICAB, Duarte Costa implemented a number of reforms of what he saw as problems in the Roman Catholic Church. Clerical celibacy was abolished. Rules for the reconciliation of divorced persons were implemented. The liturgy was translated into the vernacular, and in emulation of a short-lived experiment in France, clergy were expected to live and work amongst the people, and support themselves and their ministries, by holding secular employment. Within a short time ICAB began to be identified as “The Church of the Poor”.

Shortly after founding the church Duarte Costa consecrated two more bishops, Salomão Barbosa Ferraz (August 15, 1945), and Luis Fernando Castillo Mendez (May 3, 1948). These three bishops went on to establish similar autonomous Catholic Apostolic National Churches in several other Latin American countries. Duarte Costa served as consecrator or co-consecrator of eleven additional bishops, each of whom took a leadership role in either the Brazilian church or one of the other national churches.

Duarte Costa served as leader of the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church and its international affiliates for sixteen years until his death in 1961, by which time the church in Brazil is said to have grown to 60,000 members.