[4][5] When the revolution of 1640 placed John IV on the throne of Portugal, Brazil gave him her allegiance, and Vieira was chosen to accompany the viceroy's son to Lisbon to congratulate the new king.

"[6] He did not spare his own estate, for in his Sexagesimalsermon he boldly attacked the current style of preaching, its subtleties, affectation, obscurity and abuse of metaphor, and declared the ideal of a sermon to be one which sent men away " not contented with the preacher, but discontented with themselves.

In his Papel Forte he urged the cession of Pernambuco to the Dutch as the price of peace, while his mission to Rome in 1650 was undertaken in the hope of arranging a marriage between the heir to the throne of Portugal and the only daughter of King Philip IV of Spain.

His success, freedom of speech and reforming zeal had made him enemies on all sides, and only the intervention of the king prevented his expulsion from the Society of Jesus, so that prudence counselled his return to Brazil.

[4] In his youth he had vowed to consecrate his life to the conversion of the African slaves and native Indians of his adopted country, and arriving in Maranhão early in 1653 he recommenced his apostolic labors, which had been interrupted during his stay of fourteen years in the Old World.

[4] Accordingly, in June 1654 he set sail for Lisbon to plead the cause of the Indians, and in April 1655 he obtained from the king a series of decrees which placed the missions under the Society of Jesus, with himself as their superior, and prohibited the enslavement of the natives, except in certain specified cases.

After a time, however, the colonists, attributing the shortage of slaves and the consequent diminution in their profits to the Jesuits, began actively to oppose Vieira, and they were joined by members of the secular clergy and the other Orders who were jealous of the monopoly enjoyed by the company in the government of the Indians.

[4] Circumstances were against him, however, and the Count of Castelo Melhor, fearing his influence at court, had him exiled first to Porto and then to Coimbra; but in both these places he continued his work of preaching, and the reform of the Inquisition also occupied his attention.

[3] The Padre António Vieira Chair in Portuguese Studies, at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica-Rio de Janeiro was created on 7 October 1994, to train teachers and researchers in the social sciences.

A statue of Father António Vieira by the sculptor Marco Fidalgo, was unveiled on the Largo Trindade Coelho near the church of São Roque in 2017, on the initiative of the Holy House of Mercy of Lisbon, Portugal.

One of the largest editorial projects of its kind, it was the result of international cooperation among various Luso-Brazilian research institutions and scientific, cultural and literary academies, under the aegis of the Rectory of the University of Lisbon.

More than 20 thousand folios[13] of manuscripts and printed pages attributed to Vieira were analyzed and compared, in dozens of libraries and archives in Portugal, Brazil, Spain, France, Italy, England, Holland, Mexico and in the United States of America.

The project, directed by José Eduardo Franco and Pedro Calafate, was developed by CLEPUL in partnership with Santa Casa da Misericórdia, and published by Círculo de Leitores, with the final volume to be released in 2014.