Luis Fernando Castillo Mendez

Luis Fernando Castillo Mendez ( born December 4, 1922 in Caracas, † October 29, 2009 in Brasília ) was the patriarch of the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church of Brazil ( ICAB - Igreja Católica Brasileira Abostólica ).

This church is according to own data from 48 dioceses and is the mother church of the Worldwide Communion of Catholic Apostolic National Churches ( ICAN - Igrejas Católicas Apostólicas Nacionais ). The ICAN is claims to be from churches in 14 countries with around 2 to 3 million church members.

Life

Méndez was born in Caracas. After studying at a Roman Catholic seminary in Caracas, he was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest on August 10, 1944 Bishop Comellas y Santa María in Spanish Solsona, Catalonia.

After his return from Spain to Venezuela, he was involved as a priest in his country in the movement of the Curas Criollos. He heard of the Brazilian church reform movement that led Carlos Duarte Costa. Costa was founded in 1945, the independent Catholic Apostolic Church of Brazil. Méndez entered into correspondence with Duarte Costa.

In 1947, Méndez in Venezuela together with three other Roman Catholic clergy, the Church Venezuelan Apostolic Church. Just as the Catholic Apostolic Church of Brazil, this church was independent from the Vatican. In this church, Spanish was used instead of Latin in the liturgy and the clergy of the church was allowed to marry.

The Venezuelan Interior Minister stood in this church schism on the side of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Caracas and forbade Méndez, perform with the insignia of the Roman Catholic Church in the country. Méndez and his followers of the newly founded church in 1947, however, received support in the country by the social democratic Acción Democrática party aligned and Communist parties. On March 8, 1947 Méndez was excommunicated together with three other ecclesiastics of the Roman Catholic Church.

On May 3, 1948 Méndez met in the Panama Canal Zone Costa. Costa Méndez ordained as Bishop of Caracas and Primate of Venezuela. The Ordiniation Méndez led by the Venezuelan Government to a ban on entry of Méndez in Venezuela. Méndez traveled to Brazil, where he lived in the 1950s. He became a bishop in the Catholic Apostolic Church of Brazil in the state of Minas Gerais. In 1957, he moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he served as auxiliary bishop. After that he became a bishop in the state of Goias. In 1961, he became the Brazilian citizenship. When in 1961 Duarte Costa, died Méndez was after several years of internal Church crisis at the top of the next patriarch. Méndez died on 29 October 2009, probably in Brasilia.