By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – The name of “Edgardo Mortara” once rocketed around the Jewish and Catholic worlds – the Jews protesting that he was kidnapped by the Catholics, and the Catholics saying that once the boy was secretly baptized by the Mortara family’s maid, it had no choice but to assume parental control.
The kidnapping that occurred on June 24, 1858, was done on the orders of the Roman Catholic Church, with Pope Pius IX taking such a personal interest in the boy, he referred to himself as the lad’s “father.”
Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara, a movie by Marco Bellocchio in Italian and Hebrew, with English subtitles, will be shown at the Hillcrest Theatre the week of June 7.
Edgardo’s parents, Solomone “Monolo” and Marianna Mortara, were ordered to turn over the 6-year-old boy to the Catholic Church within 24 hours. Of course, they protested but the protests were unavailing. The City of Bologna, Italy, in the mid-19th century was under the complete control of the Church. There was no secular government until the Italian revolution, which united Italy and eliminated tiny Papal States except for the Vatican.
The movie follows young Edgardo’s life from the time as a terrified boy he was removed from his parents’ home to the time as a young man he was ordained as a priest. While he expressed affection for his biological parents whenever they were permitted to visit him, the influence of the Church, particularly the personal attention showered on him by the Pope, proved a stronger influence.
Mortara’s abduction became a cause célèbre not just in Italy but around the world, with Jewish and Catholic communities arguing opposite sides of the case, sometimes violently.
Church law required any child who had been baptized to be raised as a Catholic. Jews argued this law should not be applied to children who were baptized without their knowledge and without their parents’ permission.
Church officials said the best way to resolve the problem would be for the rest of the Mortara family to convert to Catholicism. Then they could be reunited with Edgardo. Their answer was succinct. They were born as Jews and they would die as Jews.
Imagine the distress of a boy caught in the middle of an international theological crisis. Who is he? Where does he really belong? Such existential questions had a tortuous impact on the boy. Emotionally he loved his parents, but everything he was taught from age 6 on convinced him of the rightness of Catholicism.
The emotional conflict comes to a head when Edgardo visited his mother on her death bed. You should go see the movie to see the dramatization of that climactic meeting.
*
Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.