8. Edgardo Mortara was kidnapped by the Vatican when the Church learned that he had been secretly baptized as a Catholic but lived with Jewish parents
In the 1850s and 1860s, European society – and American society too – was shocked and riveted by the so-called ‘Morata Case’. For some, it was a barbaric kidnapping. To others, however, it was fully and morally justified. Even to this day, the case divides opinion, especially among Catholics, since it was the Church who was the main protagonist. What is for sure, however, is that young Edgardo Mortara was taken from his parents against their will. What’s more, he was never returned to them despite their pleas.
The Mortaras were a Jewish family living in the city of Bologna in the 1850s. In 1857, their son Edgardo fell seriously ill. He was just six-years-old at the time and it didn’t look like he would make it. Fearing the worst, one of the family’s servants, a devout Catholic woman, baptized Edgardo in secret. Against the odds, he survived. He could have gone on to enjoy a long life with his family. However, word of the secret baptism reached the Vatican. Pope Pius IX ruled that, since he was baptized, the boy was a Catholic and should be raised as such. So, on the evening of 24 June, 1858, police officers sent by the Church turned up at the family home and took young Edgardo away.
The parents were understandably distraught. They petitioned Pope Pius to return their son. He refused and even gave Edgardo his personal protection. From the age of six onwards, he was raised in the heart of the Catholic Church. The case gripped newspaper readers around the world. Many called on the Pope to change his mind. But before long, Edgardo came to love being a Catholic. In fact, he was ordained a priest at the age of 21. He left the Papal States and devoted his life to the Church. Edgardo Mortara, the most famous kidnapping victim of the 1850s, died in Belgium in 1940, at the age of 88 and apparently with no regrets.