Bologna, 1858: A police posse, acting on the orders of a Catholic
inquisitor, invades the home of a Jewish merchant, Momolo Mortara,
wrenches his crying six-year-old son from his arms, and rushes him off
in a carriage bound for Rome. His mother is so distraught that she
collapses and has to be taken to a neighbor's house, but her weeping can
be heard across the city. With this terrifying scene - one that would
haunt this family forever - David I. Kertzer begins his fascinating
investigation of the dramatic kidnapping, and shows how the deep-rooted
antisemitism of the Catholic Church would eventually contribute to the
collapse of its temporal power in Italy. As Edgardo's parents
desperately search for a way to get their son back, they learn why he -
out of all their eight children - was taken. Years earlier, the family's
Catholic serving girl, fearful that the infant might die of an illness,
had secretly baptized him (or so she claimed). Edgardo recovered, but
when the story reached the Bologna inquisitor, the result was his order
for Edgardo to be seized and sent to a special monastery where Jews were
converted into good Catholics. His justification in Church teachings: No
Christian child could be raised by Jewish parents. The case of Edgardo
Mortara became an international cause celebre. Although such kidnappings
were not uncommon in Jewish communities across Europe, this time the
political climate had changed. As news of the family's plight spread to
Britain, where the Rothschilds got involved, to France, where it
mobilized Napoleon III, and even to America, public opinion turned
against the Vatican. The fate of this one boy came to symbolize the
entire revolutionary campaign ofMazzini and Garibaldi to end the
dominance of the Catholic Church and establish a modern, secular Italian
state.
