Aguiar (Father Dr José Gonçalves de)

José Gonçalves de Aguiar was born of humble parents in the town (vila) of Câmara de Lobos (‘seals’ den’) on 8 October 1831, the legitimate son of Vitorino Gonçalves Rocha and Vitorina Rosa de Jesus. Like some of his brothers, he used the surname Aguiar, which was that of his maternal grandfather. He was a student at the Funchal Seminary (Seminário do Funchal) when, thanks to the patronage of the Russian Waxel family, who were then in Madeira, he went to study in the faculty of theology at the University, where he graduated in a year we cannot establish. Shortly afterwards he settled in Lisbon and remained there until his death. In the capital he held, among other posts, those of high court judge (desembargador) of the patriarchal curia and prosynodal examiner (diocesan examiner of clergy).

He was a man much devoted to study and of wide learning, and for this reason was highly regarded in the capital, and no less for his qualities of character and his conduct as a citizen and as a priest. He contributed to various newspapers and, as far as we know, published separately O Dogma da Imaculada Conceição de Maria Santíssima, Lisbon, 1880, 40 pp., and Tratado da Penitência, Lisbon, 1888, XVI-849 pp.

It is recorded that he was invited more than once to accept a mitre, but he always refused to enter the episcopate.

We do not know the date of his death, which occurred in Lisbon, nor any other details of his life.