Miguel Augusto, born on 15 December, was the eldest of the seven children of Jacinto de Oliveira and Rosa Maria de Jesus, registered as "farmers" on their firstborn's baptismal certificate. After completing primary school in the parish where he was born, he continued his studies at the minor seminary of the diocese of Porto, in Carvalhos, on 16 January 1911. From there he moved on to the diocese's major seminary, where he excelled in the three-year course of theological studies. Given his intellectual qualities, the diocesan authorities invited him to continue his studies at the Gregorian University (Rome), an offer he declined. While waiting to achieve the canonical age for priesthood ordination, he taught at the Feirense College in the 1917-1918 academic year and, the following year, at the Ovarense College. From February 1920 he continued to teach at the Preparatory Seminary of his diocese, which was then operating in the Paço da Torre da Marca . There he taught Portuguese, French, and history, and was ordained a priest on 18 July 1920.

Five years later he was chosen to lead the editorial board of the Catholic newspaper Novidades [ News ] and moved to Lisbon. Earlier that year he made the first of his trips to Palestine. He wrote a chronicle of this trip, which was published in that same periodical and aroused the interest of a group that, as part of a French initiative, undertook another tour in 1927: besides Palestine, they visited Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, Greece and Syria, as well as Italy and France. Whilst continuing his journalistic activity, from 1932 he took on the role of literary censor in the editorial section of União Gráfica .

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