Carlos Kloppenburg

Who was Carlos Kloppenburg?

Carlos Kloppenburg, O.F.M. was a German-born Brazilian bishop of the Roman Catholic Church.

Carlos Kloppenburg was born in Molbergen near Oldenburg, Germany, on November 2, 1919. His parents were Bernard and Josephine Kloppenburg who immigrated to Brazil with their family of 9 in 1924.

Carlos Kloppenburg was ordained a priest of the Roman Catholic Church on January 6, 1946 in the religious order of the Orders of Friars Minor under the name Boaventura. He was ordained as a bishop August 1, 1982 and appointed auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of São Salvador da Bahia as well as Titular Bishop of Vulturaria on May 22, 1982. On August 8, 1986 Pope Paul II appointed him to the Diocese of Novo Hamburgo. He retired as Bishop emeritus of the diocese on November 22, 1995.

His principal life work was that of a Professor of Theology. He studied at the Antonianum University, Rome. During the decade of the 1950s he made a study of Spiritism in Brazil. For that purpose he also studied parapsychology at Duke University, U.S.A. under Dr Charles S Rhyne.

Bishop Kloppenburg was a prolific writer. He wrote and published extensively on the theology of the Roman Catholic Church. In the 1950s and into the 1960s he wrote on Spiritism in Brazil.