Confronto e compromisso nas nomeações episcopais oitocentistas: o caso de D. António Aires de Gouveia

With the triumph of liberalism in Portugal in 1834, the political control of episcopal appointments was unequivocal. The appointment of the government and the subsequent Roman confirmation conferred enormous complexity to the provision of dioceses, at a time when the balance between politics and religion was gaining new contours, especially when liberal politics wanted candidates receptive to its ideals and interests, and the understanding of the Holy See appreciated Roman obedience blended with legitimist sympathies. Conflicts over the profiles of the candidates grew stronger, with the Holy See resisting confirmation of the names submitted, and the political power refusing to change them. These conflicts often led to deadlocks, which the diplomatic negotiations were only able to resolve at cost, between concessions and engagements. One of these long vacancies opened up in the diocese of Faro in 1871, with the transfer of Bishop Inácio Morais Cardoso to the Patriarchate of Lisbon. The diocese remained without a bishop for about 13 years, until the arrival of Bishop António Mendes Belo in 1884. In the meantime, a long pendency developed around António Aires de Gouveia, presented to that diocese after a Masonic and regalist past, and a meteoric rise to the priesthood. This is the case that this paper studies in detail in its stages, while, in its long deadlock and in the complexity of its resolution, it illustrates the confrontation and engagement in the nineteenth-century episcopal appointments.