Andrade (Dom Francisco José Rodrigues de)

He was the 22nd prelate of this diocese. Born in 1761, he was already 60 years old when he was called to the episcopate. At the time he was parish priest of the parish (freguesia) of São Nicolau in the city of Lisbon. He was presented as bishop of Funchal in 1821 and confirmed by Pope Pius VII on 21 September of the same year. He took possession of the bishopric by proxy on 1 March 1822 and assumed the government of the diocese on 1 May of the same year.

His episcopate was a highly turbulent one, beset with difficulties, because he headed this diocese during the troubled period that runs from the revolution of 1820 to the establishment of constitutional government in 1834. He could not, or did not know how to, hold a position of absolute impartiality between the two political currents that were clashing so violently. More than once, leaning now to one side and now to the other, he drew upon himself the ill will of opponents, who waged a relentless war against him and spared no means of discrediting him and belittling him before the public. Amid the political struggles that were fought, the deep hatreds and the designs of revenge that showed themselves day after day, it became impossible to follow the straight line of duty without equivocation or devious steps.

In the clash of party passions, he published one pastoral letter dated 28 June 1828 and another dated 13 September of the same year, in which the most contradictory political principles are defended and applauded. The first advocates the representative system and praises Dom Pedro; the second defends the system of absolute government and applauds the work of Miguel I. Despite the publication of his first pastoral letter, Dom Francisco José Rodrigues de Andrade, fearful of the political events then unfolding, left Madeira on 10 July 1828, accompanied by many clergymen. In Lisbon he published his second pastoral letter, of 13 September of the same year, printed as a pamphlet of 27 pages, which is today very rare throughout the country.

After a few months he returned to his diocese, but the struggles and dissensions continued, and they truly ended only with his final departure from Madeira in 1834. On 5 June of that year the constitutional government was proclaimed in Madeira, and on the 12th of the same month Bishop Dom Francisco de Andrade entrusted the administration of the diocese to the cathedral chapter. On the following day he left the island for Italy.

Several clergymen went with him, among them Fathers António Joaquim Gonçalves de Andrade, Zeferino de Sant'Ana, António Alexandrino de Vasconcelos and António Gomes Neto. He chose the city of Genoa as his residence and, in the parish (freguesia) of Promontório, took refuge in the convent of San Bartolomeo del Fossato, there to endure the bitter days of exile. Not quite four years later he died there, on 2 May 1838, and was buried in the parish church of Promontório.

In 1891, a little over half a century later, the parish priest of Promontório was carrying out major repairs to his church. He thought of placing over the plain grave of Dom Francisco de Andrade a tombstone with an epitaph marking the place where the mortal remains of the Portuguese bishop lay. To this end he approached the illustrious prelate of this diocese, Dom Manuel Agostinho Barreto, who, with the help of some Madeiran priests, sent to Italy the necessary sum, amounting to some hundreds of mil-réis, for placing the stone on the tomb of Dom Francisco de Andrade. The stone, of fine marble, bears the prelate’s arms carved upon it and an inscription in bronze letters, which reads as follows:

Franciscus Josephus Rodrigues d'Andrade / Domo Olisipone / Funchalensis in Madeira insula Pontifex / Lusitania civico turbata motu / extorris / a proximum S. Bartholo. monasterium - viribus. non animo fractus/in pace Requievit/Kal. Mai. Anno 1838/An. natus 77/Ne tanti viri pro patria sibi optatissima tanta heri perpessi / excederet memoria Emanuel Augustinus Barreto vir excellentis decessori suo / An. 1891. (Francisco José Rodrigues de Andrade, a native of Lisbon, Bishop of Funchal in the island of Madeira, exiled when Portugal was troubled by civil strife, broken in strength but not in spirit, rested in peace near the monastery of St Bartholomew on the Kalends of May in the year 1838, aged 77. Lest the memory of so great a man, who suffered so much for the homeland he so dearly loved, should fade, Manuel Agostinho Barreto dedicated this to his excellent predecessor, in the year 1891.)