Luis Fernando Castillo Mendez
Luis Fernando Castillo Méndez is patriarch of the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church (ICAB - Igreja Católica Apostólica Brasileira), an independent catholic church. The Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church lists 48 dioceses, and is the mother church of the Catholic Apostolic National Churches (ICAN -Igrejas Católicas Apostólicas Nacionais), a loose communion of churches in 14 countries, with an estimated 4 million members worldwide.
Castillo was born in Venezuela, and was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1944 in Spain. In 1948 he was consecrated a bishop in the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church by primate Carlos Duarte Costa, in Panama.
Upon Duarte Costa's death in 1961 the primacy fell to Jose Aires da Cruz.[1] Contemporary accounts such as that by Peter Frederick Anson suggest that after Cruz there were several pretenders to the patriarchal throne. However, by 1964 Castillo was recognized as patriarch.
Castillo uses the traditional Roman Pontifical for all episcopal consecrations and is more theologically conservative than his predecessors, even though he still denies papal infallibility and obligatory priestly celibacy.
- ^ P.F. Anson, Bishops At Large, Faber, London, 1964, p.535