Catholic Apostolic Charismatic Church of Jesus The King - History

History

The Church traces its origins to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where the movement’s founder, Bishop Rómulo Antonio Braschi, was born in 1941. Ordained priest in the Roman Catholic Church in 1966, he embarked upon the early years of his priesthood against the backdrop of the political turbulence and social upheavals of Latin America in the 1960s and the repressive "National Security" governments of the 1970s. The radical stance of Romulo Braschi and his companions dates back to this time, when they were associated with the Third World Priests Movement (Movimiento de Sacerdotes para el Tercer Mundo), itself boasting radical left-wing and Peronist factions. Braschi himself was arrested for political reasons during the "Dirty War".

In this context Father Braschi’s response to the message of the Second Vatican Council, the 1968 Medellín conference, and the growing Charismatic movement was to try to introduce a new form of church mission unit, calling on his experience of the Base Communities – Comunidades de Base – associated with the Theology of Liberation. An experimental church - Santa Ana - started in Buenos Aires in 1975 became, in 1978, the Catholic Apostolic Charismatic Church of "Jesus the King." With this move, Father Braschi visibly distanced himself from the institutional Roman Catholic Church, whose alleged or supposed collusion with the Argentine Military Junta was to become one of the most widely debated aspects of the "Proceso" (Dictatorship) between 1976 and 1983. Parts of the Church also formed the vanguard in the fight against repression, and subsequently endured the persecution, detention, torture and even assassination of their own "dissident" members, such as the late Bishop Enrique Angelelli (born 1923), Bishop of La Rioja, in 1976.