Le refus de la communion aux nouveaux-chrétiens. La tendance rigoriste de l’Inquisition portugaise sous la présidence du dominicain João Vasconcelos (1640)

Abstract

Studies on conditions for administering and receiving the Eucharist in the modern age generally deal with polemics resulting from the Protestant rupture, which led to quarrels between Jansenists and Jesuits within the Catholic realm. Above all centred around theological questions, those studies have so far left aside a quarrel that emerged in an inquisitorial context in Portugal, shortly before the publication of Arnauld’s Treatise on Frequent Communion. This involved avoiding the sacrileges which might be committed by people detained in the jails of the local Holy Office. But in placing the Eucharist before all else, the deputy of the General Council of the Inquisition, responsible for the very recent prohibitions against receiving the Blessed Sacrament, instituted in 1640, bypassed a whole series of legal and political questions - which his colleagues unsuccessfully tried to point out to him. In the history of the Portuguese Inquisition’s proceedings, this polemic marked the beginning of a straying, on the inquisitors’ part, from the standards they were expected to follow.