ICAB - The Catholic Apostolic Church of Brazil

Igreja Catolica Apostolica Brasiliera (ICAB) was founded on July 6, 1945, by Bishop Carlos Duarte Costa, the former Roman Catholic Bishop of the diocese of Botucatu, in Brazil. He was also devoted to the Blessed Virgin and the Blessed Sacrament. 

In the 1930s Duarte Costa became deeply involved in the social and political changes taking place in Brazil. Bishop Duarte Costa had been a strong advocate for the poor and for reforms in the Roman Church. He challenged many of the issues that the Second Vatican Council eventually changed as he envisioned.

Archbishop Costa's criticisms of the Holy See, particularly about Vatican foreign policy during World War II toward Nazi Germany, were not well received at the Vatican, and were a primary cause of his eventually being separated from the Roman Church.

Duarte Costa also advocated for substantive change in church positions on divorce, mandatory celibacy for the clergy, and the use of local language versus Latin in the liturgy. He publicly stated his contempt regarding abuses of papal power, including the concept of Papal Infallibility, which the Bishop considered a misguided and false dogma. Instead he advocated for a more collaborative governance model where power was shared with the Laity and where Bishops were elected by the people.

In 1936, Duarte Costa made his second ad limina visit to Rome, meeting with Pope Pius XI where he presented the Pope with his list of reforms for the Church of Brazil.  The meeting did not go well eventually resulting in Bishop Duarte Costa's excommunication on July 2nd 1945 and his resignation from the Roman Catholic Church on 6 July 1945. He immediately founded the independent Igreja  Catolica Apostolica Brasileira (ICAB) on that same date and remained its Primate until his death in 1961. ICAB today numbers about 1 million members in South America.

In the US there are several chruches who trace their lineage to Duarte Costa. Our pastor, Fr. Al was once a priest in one of them but is now incardinated in the American National Catholic Catholic Church (ANCC) which also traces it succession to Duarte Costa. Fr. AL is dedicated to building our community at Our Lady Undoer of Knots.