Catholic Apostolic Charismatic Church of “Jesus the King”

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The Catholic Apostolic Charismatic Church of "Jesus the King" (Iglesia Católica Apostólica Carismática "Jesús Rey") is an independent international religious association of Catholic origin and character, with headquarters and legal recognition in Munich, Germany.

It has been described as a derivative movement of the Catholic Apostolic National Church of Brazil (ICAB – Portuguese "Igreja Católica Apostólica Brasileira") founded by the retired Roman Catholic Bishop Carlos Duarte Costa in 1945, but the group's development is more complex than this suggests. In recent years, the "Jesús Rey Church", as it is often known, reached the attention of the international media on account of controversial ordinations to the priesthood of Roman Catholic women, both lay and religious, resulting in their excommunication by the Vatican. This group is known as the Danube Seven.

1 History
2 Expansion
3 Theology of the Church
4 Controversy
5 Apostolic Succession
6 References

[edit] 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 Argentinean 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.

[edit] Expansion

In its early years in Argentina, the Church achieved only modest success, due to the overwhelmingly conservative character of Argentinean Catholicism, but the toehold of a future mission in Salvador, Brazil was established, through friendship with Father - later Bishop - Roberto Garrido Padin of the Independent Catholic Churches there. The Church's missions would later spread to Zürich, Switzerland and Munich, Germany where Father Braschi eventually set up home in the 1990s. In 1998, in the Orthodox Basilica in Munich, Father Braschi was consecrated Bishop by Roberto Garrido Padin of Brazil and Bishop Hilarios Ungerer of the Free Catholic Church of Germany. Bishop Braschi now divides his time between the various small communities in Europe and Latin America, with new fledgling mission outposts in the United States, the United Kingdom and Portugal.

[edit] Theology of the Church

[edit] Christian

The Church holds itself to be fully Christian and fully Catholic, maintaining the Seven Catholic Sacraments and the Apostolic Succession of its clergy members. This characteristic of the churches broadly described as "Catholic" effectively means that the Bishops ordain the clergy in a "family tree" traced back to the Apostles.

[edit] Catholic

The Church is considered Catholic also in the sense that its members believe in God's ongoing invitation to Christian conversion, made to all people, and the efficacy of the Sacramental life in responding to this call.

[edit] Charismatic

The Church is considered Charismatic because its members emphasise the role and work of the Holy Spirit in bringing people to awareness of God's call to unity in Jesus Christ. The influence of the Charismatic movement is present in liturgy and prayer style, but not in the elements of "Charismatic theology" that could be considered contrary to traditional Catholic practice, such as "Baptism in the Holy Spirit."

[edit] Progressive

Also, as the Spirit’s mysterious work proceeds without hindrance and without discrimination, the Church believes, both men and women, married or not, can be called to serve in all levels and offices of the ministry and priesthood, as can people of alternative gender identity and lifestyle choices.

[edit] Macro–Ecumenical

The Church maintains an active commitment to macro–ecumenism, fostering relationships with all types of faith and religious groups, Christian and non-Christian. There is open cooperation and co-celebration with other small churches and missionary congregations, and there have been moves towards communion with the Episcopal Churches in Europe. There is a special interest in the beliefs of the indigenous peoples of Latin America because the Church's founder, Romulo Antonio Braschi, has lived and worked among various Latin American peoples. While stopping short of pantheism or theological pluralism, the Church believes that "essential truths" are deposited by God in all sincere and life–affirming religions and cultures, and that since human beings and their knowledge are, by nature, incomplete and flawed, it is nonsense to talk about superiority and inferiority or gradations of value and truth in comparative religion. All human–held belief systems, by virtue of being human–held, must therefore be partially reflective of truth (i.e. of God) and partially reflective of limitations (i.e. of people).

[edit] Controversy

From some conservative Catholic standpoints, the Church is controversial enough by its very existence, being a breakaway religious movement born in the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church. Furthermore, its founder and leader, ordained a Roman Catholic priest, has been consecrated Bishop "validly but illicitly" in the Episcopal lineage of Bishop Carlos Duarte Costa, who founded a separate Brazilian Catholic Church in 1945 in protest partly to the number of escaped Nazis entering Brazil under Vatican passports. Rome has traditionally given short shrift to independent Catholic groups, while, in the case of the "Jesús Rey" Church (which Rome describes as "a schismatic community") and others such as the Old Catholic Church, it recognises the theological validity of their sacraments.

The Church’s commitment to the ordination of women led, in 2002, to the much–commented excommunication of seven Roman Catholic women by (then) Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Bishop Braschi ordained the seven women, Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger, Adelinde Theresia Roitinger, Gisela Forster, Iris Muller, Ida Raming, Pia Brunner and Angela White, priests on Saturday, June 29, 2002 (a date on which priestly ordinations are traditionally held) aboard a boat on the River Danube in Austria. The women are sometimes referred to as the Danube Seven. The official warning – "Monitum" (reprimand) – came from the Vatican on July 10, demanding repentance and threatening excommunication. The women, among their number some noted and acclaimed theologians, defended their position, and the threatened decree of excommunication duly arrived dated 5 August 2002, "with all the effects established by canon 1331 of the Code of Canon Law". The ordinations, or "simulations" of ordinations, according to the Vatican declaration, were considered null, void, and invalid by Rome, not on account of their holding Bishop Braschi to be a "schismatic", but because Pope John Paul II's Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis states that "the church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women" (n.4). In Rome's eyes, in other words, the ordination of women would be invalid even if it were the Pope himself who performed the ordination.

[edit] Apostolic Succession

As mentioned above, and very widely documented elsewhere, a retired Roman Catholic Bishop called Carlos Duarte Costa (1888–1961) founded the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church (Igreja Católica Apostólica Brasileira) in 1945, informally referred to as the Brazilian Church or the Brazilian National Church. Bishop Duarte Costa was in favour of greater local autonomy for Catholic churches, an end to obligatory celibacy, Mass in the vernacular and greater discretion to liquidize church assets if the material needs of the faithful demanded it. None of Duarte Costa's demands ever received satisfaction from Rome (at least not in his lifetime).

Bishop Duarte Costa consecrated Salomao Barbosa Ferraz on 15 August 1945. Barbosa Ferraz (1880–1969) had been ordained an Anglican priest in 1917, and on 17 June 1928, he founded the non–denominational Order of San Andres. He called a "Free Catholic Congress" in 1936, establishing the "Free Catholic Church". The Order of San Andres and the Free Catholic Church (of Brazil) would eventually be merged, in the 1960s, into the Independent Catholic and Apostolic Church of Brazil (Igreja Catolica Apostolica Independente do Brazil. Salomao Barbosa Ferraz was eventually received into the Roman Catholic Church, which recognised his Episcopal consecration as valid, and he – and his wife – attended the sessions of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).

Bishop Barbosa Ferraz consecrated Manoel Ceia Laranjeira on 29 June 1951 in São Paulo, Brazil, assisted by an Anglican Bishop and a Bishop of a branch of the Old Catholic Church. He reorganised various factions of the Brazilian Church, shaken by Bishop Barbosa Ferraz's submission to Rome, and united them under the new legal title of Independent Catholic Apostolic Church of Brazil (Igreja Católica Apostólica Independente do Brasil).

Bishop Manoel Ceia Laranjeira consecrated Roberto Garrido Padin on 2 May 1989 at the Church of Santa Barbara in Salvador, Brazil, as diocesan bishop.

Bishop Roberto Garrido Padin consecrated Rómulo Antonio Braschi at the Greek Orthodox Basilica in Munich, Germany, in October 1998. Bishop Garrido Padin was assisted by Bishop Hilarios Karl-Heinz Ungerer of the German Free Catholic Church, formerly of the Old Catholic Mariavite Church, who was consecrated by Bishop Norbert Maas in 1976.