The Kidnapping Of Edgardo Mortara (1998) - Plot & Excerpts
In reading The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara by David Kertzer, readers might find it difficult to not shake their heads in utter disbelief, for it elicited that reaction in me. Nominated for the National Book Award, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara tells the compelling if not disturbing true story of Catholic zealotry gone terribly awry.On a June evening in 1858, six-year-old Edgardo Mortara and the rest of his Jewish family were at home living their lives and minding their own business. However, that quickly changed when guards from the Office of the Inquisition were ordered to take little Edgardo out of his parents charge and remove him from his family home. Horrified at what was happening, the parents demanded to know why they had to give up their son. Informing them that he had been secretly baptized, he thus became a ward of the Papal states. Under canon law, he, in effect, was no longer Jewish but a Catholic-Christian and could no longer live in a house where Jewish ideology could be imbued and fostered in a young and malleable mind. He was escorted out of the house and sent to Rome to live in the House of Catechumens, a house for Roman converts. This incident sent Edgardo's father, Salomone, into a desperate quest to get his little boy back. The incident provoked international outrage and catapulted a simple and decent family onto the global stage of religion and politics.The kidnapping brought physical and mental havoc onto the Mortara clan; they were unexpectedly thrust into the glow of the public eye. And all the while, they maintained that their son was Jewish, raised with thorough orthodox values and traditions and that a serious error had to have occurred. But as time went forward, they learned some things that they were not privy to, the paramount one being that their son was baptized by a Catholic servant girl named Anna Morisi who was once in their employment. When Edgardo was ill, perhaps not seriously but she deemed it to be, she took the action of extreme unction, an act that any baptized Christian can take when an unbaptized person is on the very threshold of death. They take water and pour it over the head saying, In the name of the Father, the Son, And the Holy Spirit, I baptize you... What Anna Morisi did was perform a legitimate baptism, but she was unaware of the Catholic doctrine and policy ramifications that were attached to such a desperate and final act. She had inadvertently made Edgardo not only a Catholic-Christian (without his parents knowledge), but also a ward of the Papal States. Incredibly enough, this was not an uncommon happening, apparently, because many Jewish families hired Catholic servant girls to work in their homes; the Jewish families had work to offer and the young Catholic women wanted to earn dowries for their marriages, one of many legitimate reasons for the unusual work set-up. However, it was a set-up that was none-to-pleasing to the Vatican hierarchy, for they wanted to avoid happenings like this from occurring. But the working relationships between the Jewish and Catholics only seemed to make it happen more. It was not until Edgardo's baptism that the case was carried forward into the international spotlight.Edgardo could see his father but only on supervised visits, and although the boy was well taken care of, his Jewish roots were slowly being chipped away at, his Jewishness gently being nullified. His biological father was gradually being replaced, by of all people, Pope Pius IX, whom Edgardo was gradually seeing as the fatherly male figure that every boy/girl needs in their life. Casting away the criticism from the public at large, Pope Pius IX essentially believed that if he relinquished the boy back to his parents, he would have, in essence, abrogated the valid baptism as performed by Anna Morisi. The wider question that had to have been asked was, Would Jesus Christ himself also have been abrogated-to any degree-in the process? And herein is where the quandary laid. Obviously Pope Pius IX thought in the affirmative. The only other solution that the Mortaras could have chosen in order to get Edgardo back was to convert themselves to the Catholic faith, an almost impossible thing to ask when devout people consider their faith as unchangeable as their height or eye and hair color. It would have been a galling request.As all this happened, Edgardo gradually became indoctrinated to the point that he didn't even want to see his family anymore. That only added fuel to the fire, because amidst all this strife, Italy as a country was looking to break away from Papal authority, the charge being led by by the Kingdom of Sardinia, a liberal and nationalist bulwark state that desired total Italian unification; they and the media used the Mortara case as an example to illustrate the supernatural "backwardness" of the Pope and the curia in the Vatican. Churned out articles and demonstrations put the Pope in a Catch-22. By refusing to give up the boy, outside countries allowed a war between Piedmont and the Papal States to happen whereby the Pope lost most of his territories and influence, thus relegating him to the stewardship of Rome alone, and then later on, when the French left, he was denied even that. Material and territorial sacrifices were huge for the Pope and it left an amazing legacy that I'm sure was somewhat responsible for the discussion of a possible Vatican II down the road.Edgardo's life was never the same. And he never became the strong Jewish man that his parents had envisioned him becoming. The indoctrination was so thorough that he eventually became an Augustinian Catholic priest, preaching for the perpetual conversion of the Jews; he did reestablish connections with his family, but he was probably viewed as the outsider in every sense of the word. The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara was a stellar work of Italian history, and it definitely earned its NBA nomination. This case was cited in a PBS documentary that I saw titled Secret Files of the Inquisition, and that in companion with this work makes for an insightful overview of a difficult time in Catholic-Jewish relations.
This book was a finalist for the National Book Award, and deservedly so. But the catch is, you probably really have to like a good history; the story is not told in straightforward, narrative style, and it isn't a novel. Parts of it read like one, but it probably isn't a book that you'll want to check out if you're looking for a "folksy" history for the lay person. This book has a great deal to do with the risorgimento, the unification of Italy, and it does give a lot of well-researched historical treatment to Edgar Mortara's story and that of his parents, the Jewish community at the time, and the outrage that was the last straw in the eyes and minds of many calling for the removal of the Pope from temporal power & the elimination of his territory, the Papal States. If you're interested in that topic, Kertzer has a marvelous book called Prisoner of the Vatican, which I can very highly recommend; again, another history.But let me try to synopsize here. In 1858, the family of Momolo Mortara, living in Bologna, answer the door to find two Inquisition officers at their door, saying that they were there to take away their boy Edgardo, who was just 6. It turns out that when Edgardo was younger, a Catholic servant girl working in the Mortara home thought Edgardo was going to die during an illness, and "baptized" him. The law was that having been baptized (and how a mere girl could do this and have it stick is fascinating reading with long history), Edgardo was no longer a Jew and had to be put under the protection of the Catholic Church. Well, naturally, this didn't sit well with Edgardo's family; the story tells all about their efforts for years trying to reclaim their son. At first, the office of the Inquisition would not even tell them where he was being taken; Edgardo's father, Momolo, was simply told that the boy was going to "someone who is a good family man." (33) Before you think that this was an isolated case, the author notes that "the taking of Jewish children was a common occurrence in nineteenth-century Italy." (34) These types of "clandestine" baptisms occurred often. But they were also punishable by corporal punishment (44), but the cases where this law was actually applied were pretty rare.One of the most interesting parts of this book was the "clash of two realities," or the Jewish take on the situation v. the Catholic take. The accounts in the newspapers & in reported testimony are absolutely fascinating to read... you can't tell who's telling the truth, although it's easy to see that both sides are embellishing for their own purposes. But even more fascinating is the fact that the news of this kidnapping leaked out of the Bologna borders into Europe & even into America -- there the same polemic started all over again, based on one's side in the religious debate. The case spawned several plays -- for example, the author notes "La Famiglia Ebrea" (The Jewish Family) in 1861 -- in which a Jewish boy was baptized in secret by the family servant & raised by Jesuits. However, in this version, the boy "nourished a smoldering hatred for those who had deprived him of his parents," and eventually came to lead the fight for Italy's unification! (252-253)Absolutely fascinating; I also found a reference to the testimony of Edgardo Mortara himself, a deposition taken at a time when Pius IX (the pope at the time) was being considered for sainthood: here -- again, you have to kind of take it for what it's worth.I didn't decide to read this as a part of any anti-Catholic campaign; the premise looked interesting and the subject matter looked intriguing. It is a very well-researched book, and it's obvious the author has a passion for his subject. The link between the kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara and the chain of events leading to unification of Italy is well established in his research.Very well done, and if you are at all into history, you may really enjoy this. I had also read that at some point there was going to be a film made about this (with Anthony Hopkins as Pius IX), but funding fell through or some such thing.I'm happy to have had the opportunity to read this one!
What do You think about The Kidnapping Of Edgardo Mortara (1998)?
A truly fascinating tome on a part of history that is largely forgotten, I love this type of book because it educates me on a topic about which I knew nothing. A classic tipping point in history, Edgardo Mortara was a 7-year-old Jewish child who was secretly baptized by his parent's illiterate Catholic servant girl, prompting the Italian Inquisition to extract him from his home in the late 1800s. While it was a centuries-old practice, popular sentiment, the strengthening of the global press and emerging revolutionary governments became enmeshed in "il caso Mortara," changing the landscape of the Vatican and Papal power forever. My only complaint is that it sometimes strayed too much from the story at hand, exploring in too much dry depth the political intricacies of the period.
—Lurdes
This is a fascinating, thoroughly researched book about the kidnapping of a Jewish boy by the Catholic Church in Bologna, Italy in 1858. Six-year-old Edgardo Mortara was taken from his home by officers of the Inquisition on the pretext that he had been secretly baptized by a household servant years before. In the eyes of the church, this boy had was a Catholic and could not be raised by Jewish parents. For the next 15 years his parents fought to regain their son. Jews around the world became interested in the case and the Pope came under considerable pressure from foreign governments to give up the child, which he steadfastly refused to do.David Kertzer presents the facts about this case as they appear in historical documents and newspapers from around the world in so much detail that I ended up skimming some of the information to get back to the story. As one might expect, the stories that appeared in the conservative Catholic press and those that appeared in more liberal papers were quite different. What I found most interesting was the role this one event played in the eventual unification of Italy and the resulting loss of power of the Catholic Church.
—Lisa
Probably closer to a 3.5. This was a really interesting history, but it is so jam-packed with info that it is a slow dense read. I found myself reading a chapter or two a day then putting it down. This follows the story of the decline of Vatican power in Italy, connecting it to the international incident caused by the Church kidnapping a secretly baptized Jewish boy, Edgardo Mortara. The only reason why it doesn't get a 4 is that Kertzer sometimes lets the historical facts impend on the narrative of Edgardo and his family.
—Michael
