1741. Carta do frei Francisco de Assis, padre, para Maria Antónia da Encarnação.

Love letter from the friar Francisco de Assis, priest, to Maria Antónia da Encarnação.

The author complains to his lover about something that happened between them, and he makes some threats.

The defendant in this process is the friar Francisco de Assis, priest, accused of "solicitação" in 1741. Francisco de Assis gave some assistance at the home of Maria Antónia da Encarnação and her family. Since she felt that he always dealt with her in a special way, in November 1740 she sent him a message, asking him to confess her. Given that she was happy with his advice, she made him her permanent confessor. On the eve of dia de Reis, 1741, he wrote her a letter, to which she replied, and the two started to correspond, treating each other as if they were siblings. As a disguise, the letters were addressed in the name of her father, Francisco da Silva. The priest then used to spend several days in her house, seducing her with kisses and hugs, convincing her that he had good intentions and that none of it was a sin. Finally, on Easter of that same year, the two had sex. After Easter, however, when she confessed again, the two had a falling out. He stopped visiting her, and Maria Antónia da Encarnação asked him to stop writing so often, which offended him. The correspondence between them declined, and they stopped seeing each other. Following this, Maria Antónia da Encarnação confessed to the priest of S. Pedro de Óbidos, who told her to go talk to the commissioner of the Holy Office, at the parish of S. João. Since she was a demure girl, who just came out of home with her mother and sisters to go to church, and was now afraid that her different behavior would raise suspicions, she asked the priest of S. Pedro to send himself her confession, written on July 7, along with a piece of paper that the friar Francisco de Assis had written with his own blood, and even some of his letters that she had not burnt. The letters PSCR1522, PSCR1523 and PSCR1524 appear to have been written before Easter 1741, which was on 25 March, because there is still no coldness between the two. The letter PSCR1521 must have been written after Easter, because Francisco mentions the events that had occurred on that day. The letter PSCR1525 seems to allude to the disagreement between the two, thus it must have been written between Easter and July, when she denounced him.

After that indictment, Francisco de Assis fled to Rome, trying to avoid being imprisoned. On his way to Rome, in Genoa, he met Pedro Duarte, a young Portuguese who had been a soldier at the service of the king of Spain, but had fled in 1744. Francisco de Assis asked him to be his companion during this trip to Rome, taking him as his lover. When they returned to Portugal, however, Pedro Duarte ran away from him and Francisco de Assis ordered that his lover was arrested, accusing him of sodomy and making efforts to release him only after he promised not to abandon him. In September 1745, Pedro Duarte told all this to the Inquisition of Évora. An arrest warrant was released in the name of Francisco de Assis, who by then was living in Elvas, where he had told another priest that he had harassed several women during confession. Franscico de Assis fled again, this time to Lisbon, on October 10, 1745. The letter PSCR1526 must have thus been written between 7 and 10 October, as the author announces he is going to Lisbon. Among other issues, he complains about the ingratitude of Joaquim Carvalho, actually Pedro Duarte, who had denounced him.