He was successively titular Archbishop of Mitilene (1845), 55th Bishop of Coimbra and ex officio 20th Count of Arganil (in 1851), and finally Patriarch of Lisbon in 1858; that year he was also made a Cardinal by Pope Pius IX.

[1][2] He was born in Rua Direita, in Santa Marinha, Vila Nova de Gaia, on 25 December 1800, into a family from the local petty bourgeoisie, the son of José Bento Rodrigues Guimarães and his wife Ana de São José.

He entered the Congregation of the Secular Canons of St John the Evangelist at a very young age and was professed at the Beato António Convent in Lisbon.

[5] Elected titular archbishop of Mitilene and appointed auxiliary archbishop of Lisbon on 24 November 1845, he was consecrated on 22 February 1846 in the church of São Vicente de Fora by Cardinal Guilherme Henriques de Carvalho, patriarch of Lisbon.

Transferred to the Cathedral of Coimbra with the personal title of archbishop on 15 March 1852, he became ex officio Count of Arganil.