93-Year-Old Priest Fights Back Against False Accusers, the Media and the Archdiocese
Just weeks before marking the 70th anniversary of his priestly ordination on July 8, a Portuguese Priest finds himself once again defending his reputation against false sexual abuse allegations that were archived by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2023. After years of public accusations, restrictions on his ministry, relentless media vilification, and refusal to defend him by the Archdiocese of Braga, the priest has issued a public Right of Reply and announced legal action for defamation against the accusers. The case has gained renewed urgency as Grupo Vita (created by the Portuguese Episcopal Conference to respond to abuse allegations) prepares to meet Vatican officials in an effort to challenge the archival of his case.
Father Manuel Fernando Sousa e Silva, former Judicial Vicar, better known as Canon Fernando, is a priest of the Archdiocese of Braga who, in recent years, has been the subject of extensive media attention due to allegations of sexual abuse dating back more than fifty years.
The accusations first emerged in 2019 in connection with the parish of Joane and concerned alleged inappropriate touching and sexually related matters during the Sacrament of Confession. Numerous news reports and television features were published, leading the Archbishop, Jorge Ortiga, to require the priest to celebrate Mass privately at home and to prohibit him from hearing confessions at the Church of Joane. He was also instructed not to make any public statements.
In 2022, new television reports appeared, featuring detractors whose faces were concealed and voices distorted. The newly appointed Archbishop José Cordeiro immediately visited the Parish of Joane to ask the people’s forgiveness for the sins allegedly committed. He did not allow the accused priest an opportunity to present his side of the case and effectively assumed his guilt, despite the fact that no one appeared to testify before the Archdiocesan Commission for the Protection of Minors and Vulnerable Persons, which had been opened specifically on October 8, 2022, to “hear exclusively” the alleged victims of the priest.
The case was sent to Rome and reviewed by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, which rightly dismissed it in 2023. However, the Archdiocese took three years (!) to make this public, keeping the priest suspended from his ministry during that period and preventing him from defending himself, thereby allowing the cloud of accusations hanging over him to persist without any apparent justification.
Only on April 8 of this year did the Archdiocese publish its official statement, which regrettably continued to cast suspicion upon the priest despite the dismissal by the Dicastery and the lack of evidence for the alleged abuses, referring instead to: “a possible imprudence in the exercise of the ministry of confessor”
On May 21, a new hit piece aired on RTP’s (Portuguese State TV) investigative program Linha da Frente, repeating the same accusations against Canon Fernando. Two anonymous individuals appeared in the program, together with a third person, Manuel Nel Cunha, a member and candidate of the extreme left-wing party “Bloco de Esquerda”. He was introduced simply as “a resident of Joane” and repeated testimony allegedly received from third parties concerning events said to have occurred more than fifty years ago.
On June 8, after years of enforced silence, Father Fernando responded to the report through a Right of Reply sent to RTP and published on his Facebook profile. In the reply, which we publish in translation below, he systematically refuted the allegations, questioned the media's “malevolent” presumption of his guilt, criticized the “destructive” conduct of the Diocesan Commission, and accused the Archdiocese of having “disgracefully” done nothing but “add fuel to the fire”.
The latest news on the case comes from the Group Vita, led by Rute Agulhas, an advocate of gender identity theories, which is due to meet this in Rome this Thursday, the 18th, with the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors (Tutela Minorum) to challenge the justified closure of the case against Canon Fernando.
Right of Reply of Father Fernando Sousa e Silva
On 21 May 2026, RTP aired a report on the programme "Linha da Frente" in which I was relentlessly defamed, both directly and indirectly, through false allegations of “paedophilia”, “sexual abuse,” “abuse” of children’s “innocence,” and sexual gestures during the Sacrament of Confession. I was calumniously described as “a man who puts children’s heads under his cassock,” “the priest running his hands along our legs and panting,” “we would go in, he would immediately put his hand behind our backs and pull us close to him, very close, pressing his face against ours,” and that children “could not breathe, they came out short of breath from being under a cassock for so long with their heads between his legs.”
These false accusations were made by three individuals during the report, two of whom remained anonymous, while the third spoke on behalf of alleged third parties and purported testimonies dating back more than fifty years.
These accusations originally stemmed from a man who developed a personal conflict with my late brother, who was also a priest of the parish, and who continued a campaign of defamation against me, mobilising three people from Joane who, since 2022, have appeared in the media with concealed identities and distorted voices, repeating the same falsehoods.
These defamatory allegations were carefully chosen to make my defence difficult, since most of the accusations concern supposed questions and statements allegedly made by me during the Sacrament of Confession, a sacrament regarding which all priests are bound by the seal of confession.
As for the alleged gestures and physical contact said to have occurred during Confession, such accusations can only come from someone unfamiliar with Catholic practice at the time. In accordance with the recommendations then in force, I always heard the confessions of women of any age in a confessional enclosed on all sides and with a door, communicating through the confessional grille. This made any physical contact impossible, much less contact of a sexual nature. Most of the time I did not even know whom I was hearing, nor did the penitents know the identity of the confessor. This confessional was located in the nave of the church, at the front on the right-hand side, in plain view, where mothers waited nearby for their children and other people waited to go to Confession.
Throughout my priestly life, which began in 1956, I served as Rector of the Church of the Congregados in Braga, Spiritual Director of the Philosophy Seminary, Judicial Vicar of the Archdiocese of Braga, Spiritual Director of the Legion of Mary, Secretary of the Presbyteral Council of Braga, Episcopal Vicar for the Laity, and Diocesan Pastoral Secretary, in addition to directing numerous retreats for priests in Braga, Bragança-Miranda, Viana do Castelo, Lamego, Fátima, among other places. I have heard the confessions of thousands of people—men, women, and children—in various parts of the country. Yet the only place where complaints against me ever arose was in the town where a man became estranged from my late brother. Is it a coincidence?
Added to this ignominy the media establishment, hungry for views and clicks which, without respect for the most basic standards of journalistic ethics and without genuinely seeking to hear the other side, reproduces anonymous allegations as though they were established facts, thereby collaborating in and becoming complicit in the defamation of my name and dignity. In the same news report, it immorally combined and conflated testimony concerning a rape in another diocese with a case involving alleged inappropriate words and gestures during Confession. Is it malevolence?
Sadly, the Diocesan Commission for the Protection of Minors and Vulnerable Persons of the Archdiocese of Braga succeeded in being more destructive than the Church’s declared enemies. Throughout this ordeal, I was never given an opportunity to defend myself. I was automatically presumed guilty and prevented from exercising my priestly ministry in the parish church of Joane while the investigation was underway. I was also repeatedly instructed to remain silent, thereby preventing me from defending myself in the public square and in the media. Is it abuse of power?
The just conclusion finally came with the subsequent dismissal of the investigation by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (Rome) in June 2023. Yet the Archdiocese took 3 years (!) to publicly announce that the case had been closed for lack of proof and to free me from this burden of infamy. Disgracefully, the Archdiocese’s statement merely added fuel to the fire by suggesting that there may have been "a possible imprudence in the exercise of his role as a confessor". Rather than defending me, it reignited the scandal in the media. Is it subservience?
At ninety-three years of age, I don’t have enough time to clear my name of every vile falsehood that has been hurled against me in the public square. Yet I will always have time to defend the honour of the Church founded by Jesus Christ and her Sacraments, and I shall do so until the end of my life.
Accordingly, and so that there may be no doubt as to the falsity of these accusations, I hereby announce that I shall initiate criminal proceedings for aggravated defamation against those involved in this journalistic piece and against any others who publicly repeat the same falsehoods.
AMDG
Fr. Manuel Fernando Sousa e Silva
Joane, 8 June 2026
Feast of Blessed Mary of the Divine Heart
Source: Father João Silveira (@joaosilveiraaa) on X