 He also sold his cousin's sumptuous home and distributed the funds from that to the poor.For a long time he avoided hearing confessions fearing that he would suffer an epileptic seizure in the booth while in 1739 a friend suggested he could do more good hearing confessions.Rossi was not authorized due to his condition and resisted it for a while but was consoled when the Bishop of Civitá Castellana Giovanni Francesco Maria Tenderini said to him that it was all part of his vocation; Rossi was at the bishop's home recovering from an illness.