Clemente José Colaço Leitão
Clemente José Colaço Leitão, S.J. (17 December 1704 – 31 January 1771) was a Portuguese prelate of the Catholic Church who served as the Bishop of Cochin in India from 1745 until his death. He is a significant figure in the history of the Indian Church for his detailed account of the martyrdom of Devasahayam Pillai, which was instrumental in the latter's beatification.
Biography
Early life and arrival in India
Clemente José Colaco Leitão was born in the town of Cernache do Bonjardim in central Portugal. At the time of his birth, the town was already a place of pilgrimage as the birthplace of the national hero and saint, Nuno Álvares Pereira. Leitão joined the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) and was sent as a missionary to India.
Episcopal ministry
On 8 March 1745, he was appointed by Pope Benedict XIV as the Bishop of Cochin, a diocese that at the time covered a large part of southwestern India. Due to the political situation on the Malabar Coast, he was unable to reside in the city of Cochin itself. In 1663, the Dutch East India Company had captured Cochin from the Portuguese, and the Dutch did not permit Portuguese bishops or those dependent on Portugal to operate within their territory.
Consequently, Bishop Leitão established his residence in Anjengo, a town in the southern part of his diocese, located between Quilon (Coulão) and Trivandrum. He later moved his residence further south to the St. Peter's Church in Coulão. Both locations were within the territory of the Kingdom of Travancore, whose Raja tolerated his presence.
Colaço Leitão was known as a zealous and conscientious bishop. He was particularly concerned with the cause of Devasahayam Pillai (1712–1752), a local convert from Hinduism who was executed on 14 January 1752 after a long period of imprisonment and torture for his faith. On the occasion of Pillai's martyrdom, Bishop Leitão issued a pastoral letter to the faithful of his diocese and ordered the singing of a solemn Te Deum on a specific day. Most importantly, he wrote a detailed account of the case, dated 15 November 1756, and sent it to Pope Benedict XIV in Rome. Colaço Leitão's report, which survived in its original form, served as the primary source of documentation for the beatification of the Indian martyr in 2012.
Bishop Leitão spoke and wrote the local language, Malayalam, with great proficiency and corresponded directly with the Raja of Travancore.
Defence of Gabriel Malagrida and later years
The bishop also wrote a courageous letter in defense of his fellow Jesuit, Gabriel Malagrida (1689–1761), who was accused of heresy in Portugal. In his letter, Leitão strongly criticized the politically motivated procedures of the Portuguese Inquisition against Malagrida and denounced formal procedural errors. Father Malagrida, an advocate for indigenous peoples in Brazil, was a victim of a politico-religious intrigue orchestrated by the powerful royal minister, Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo (the Marquis of Pombal), due to his opposition to the minister's colonial policies. After a sensational trial, Malagrida was strangled as a heretic and then burned.
Bishop Leitão himself became a target of political attacks in Portugal because of his writings. However, he was practically inaccessible to the Portuguese authorities in India and died in 1771 before any action could be taken against him personally. The censorship tribunal in Lisbon issued an edict against his writings on 28 April 1774, which concluded by ordering his defence of Malagrida to be publicly torn up and burned by the executioner in the Praça do Comércio. It also ordered anyone possessing the letter to turn it in to the authorities.
Death and legacy
Clemente José Colaço Leitão died in his residence at Coulão on 31 January 1771 and was buried in the St. Peter's Church in Quilon (Coulão), Moothakara. His tomb is preserved and maintained to this day.
In 1774, a complete book was published anonymously in Portuguese concerning Bishop Leitão's defence letter and the reactions it provoked. It was subsequently reprinted several times under the title Resposta e reflexões á carta que D. Clemente José Collaço Leitão, bispo de Cochim (Response and Reflections on the Letter of D. Clemente José Collaço Leitão, Bishop of Cochin).