The Catholic Apostolic Charismatic Church of "Jesus the King" (Spanish: 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 is known for its bishop, Rómulo Antonio Braschi, a former Roman Catholic priest, who performed the ordination of the Danube Seven.
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History
The Church originated in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where its founder, Braschi, was born in 1941. He was ordained as a priest of 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 Braschi and his companions dates back to this time, when they were associated with the Movement of Priests for the Third World (MSTM), itself boasting radical left-wing and Peronist factions. Braschi was arrested for political reasons during the Dirty War.
Braschi responded to the message of the Second Vatican Council, the 1968 Conference of Latin American Bishops, and the growing charismatic movement by introducing a new form of church mission, modeled on the basic ecclesial community associated with the liberation theology. 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, Braschi publicly distanced himself from the Roman Catholic Church, whose alleged collusion with the Argentine Military Junta was a 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, bishop of La Rioja, in 1976.
It has been described as a derivative movement of the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church (ICAB), which was founded in 1945 by Carlos Duarte Costa, a retired Roman Catholic bishop.
In 2001, the Argentine government resolved that it causes confusion and granting it official recognition would cause injury to another confession; furthermore, according to the Argentine government, it is not a sociological entity since it has no religious community, it has no place of worship, it has no religious ministers, and is non-existent in Argentina.
Expansion
In its early years, the Church achieved little success among the overwhelmingly conservative Catholicism in Argentina, but the toehold of a future mission in Salvador, Brazil was established, through friendship with - later Bishop - Roberto Garrido Padin of the Independent Catholic Churches there. The Church's missions spread to Zürich, Switzerland and Munich, Germany where Braschi immigrated to in the 1990s. In 1998, in Munich, Braschi was consecrated bishop by Garrido Padin and Bishop Hilarios Ungerer of the Free Catholic Church in Germany.
Christian
The Church identifies itself as being Christian and Catholic, with rituals of the seven sacraments, with clergy in an apostolic succession. 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.
Catholic
The Church is considered Catholic also in the sense that its members believe in God's ongoing invitation to Christian religious conversion, made to all people, and the efficacy of the sacramental life in responding to this call.
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."
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.
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, 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).
Controversy
From some conservative Catholic standpoints, the Church is controversial enough by its very existence, being a breakaway religious movement from 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 Duarte Costa.
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. Braschi ordained the seven women, Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger, Adelinde Theresia Roitinger, Gisela Forster, Iris Muller, Ida Raming, Pia Brunner and Angela White, priests in 2002 aboard a boat on the River Danube in Austria. The women are sometimes referred to as the Danube Seven. The women, among their number some noted and acclaimed theologians, defended their position, and were soon excommunicated. The ordinations, or "simulations" of ordinations, according to the Vatican excommunication, are considered null, void, and invalid, not on account of their holding Braschi to be a "schismatic", but because, as explained in Pope John Paul II in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, "the church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women" (n.4). In the Roman Catholic Church the attempted ordination of a woman is invalid.
Apostolic succession
As mentioned above, and very widely documented elsewhere, Duarte Costa founded ICAB in 1945. Duarte Costa favoured greater local autonomy for Catholic churches, an end to obligatory celibacy, Mass in the vernacular, and greater discretion to liquidate 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).
Duarte Costa consecrated Salomao Barbosa Ferraz in 1945. Ferraz 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). Ferraz converted to Roman Catholicism and his episcopal consecration was recognized as valid; he – and his wife – attended the sessions of the Second Vatican Council.
Ferraz consecrated Manoel Ceia Laranjeira in 1951 in São Paulo, Brazil, assisted by an Anglican bishop and a bishop of a branch of the Old Catholic Church. After Ferraz converted, Ceia Laranjeira reorganised various factions of the Free Catholic Church as the Independent Catholic Apostolic Church of Brazil (Igreja Católica Apostólica Independente do Brasil).
Ceia Laranjeira consecrated Garrido Padin in 1989 in Salvador, Brazil.
Garrido Padin consecrated Braschi in 1998. Garrido Padin was assisted by Bishop Hilarios Karl-Heinz Ungerer of the Free Catholic Church in Germany.
Braschi has since consecrated Ferdinand Regelsberger, a former Benedictine monk.