1753. Carta de Eusébio de Jesus Maria José, frade da Ordem Terceira de São Francisco, para Manuel Teixeira da Cunha, padre.

Private letter from Eusébio de Jesus Maria José, friar of the Ordem Terceira de São Francisco, to Manuel Teixeira da Cunha, priest.

The author asks the recipient to help him and another friar, for they are being held in an underground prison of their convent for having witnessed against friar Antonio de S. José.

The defendant in this process is the father Antonio de S. José, a native of Estarreja, a professed religious in the Ordem Terceira de São Francisco and Master of the Novices at the Convent Nossa Senhora de Jesus, in Lisbon. He was arrested by the Inquisition in 1754 for "wrongly feeling the determinations and doctrines of the Church". Before his service in Lisbon, the friar António de S. José had been in the Colégio de São Pedro dos Terceiros, in Coimbra, with the same functions. During this time he was accused by other friars, among them the friars Eusébio de Jesus Maria José, friar Agostinho do Rosário and friar Francisco da Expectação. These friars accused him of, during the sacrament of confession, asking them who were the accomplices of their sins and what were the sins of other companions, denying them absolution if they did not reveal this. He also made them repeat outside their confession everything they had said, so that he could denounce their crimes to their superiors and punish them. Not only did he break the sacramental secrecy, as he led the friars to hide their offenses and to have sacrilegious confessions, or simply not to confess to him. When a religious wished to complain to the Holy Office, friar Antonio de S. José did not give him permission and arrested him, forcing him to publicly decay, thus causing the hostility of several friars. However, the situation seems to have been resolved, as it is mentioned in the case that some of those who previously distrusted him eventually decayed and asked for forgiveness. After a complex series of interrogations, it was proved that, in any case, the defendant effectively broke the sacramental secrecy of the confession, and showed ignorance of the apostolic rules on the subject and the edicts of the Holy Office, which the defendant confirmed not knowing. Friar Antonio de S. José was deprived forever of being able to confess in any form, was suspended from the exercise of his orders for three years and sentenced to eight years of exile.